INN prerelease pool 29/01/12

What would you play? I'll post my deck later in the week.

Pool on TappedOut

To view images copy the list into MTG Proxy Generator

Abbey Griffin
Champion of the Parish
Intangible Virtue
Moment of Heroism
Rally the Peasants
Voiceless Spirit
Smite the Monstrous
Bar the Door
Break of Day
Gather the Townsfolk
Lingering Souls
Sanctuary Cat

Deranged Assistant
Dream Twist
Memory’s Journey
Murder of Crows
Stitched Drake
Nephalia Seakite
Divination
Griptide
Headless Skaab
Relentless Skaabs
Screeching Skaab
Soul Seizer
Tower Geist

Brain Weevil
Dead Weight
Falkenrath Noble
Ghoulcaller’s Chant
Markov Patrician
Maw of the Mire
Tribute to Hunger
Victim of Night
Black Cat
Chosen of Markov
Farbog Boneflinger
Fiend of the Shadows
Gravepurge
Gruesome Discovery
Highborn Ghoul
Spiteful Shadows
Tragic Slip
Undying Evil

Ashmouth Hound
Curse of the Pierced Heart
Desperate Ravings
2 Furor of the Bitten
Infernal Plunge
Kessig Wolf
Reckless Waif
Village Ironsmith
Erdwal Ripper
Faithless Looting
Flayer of the Hatebound
Fling
Forge Devil

Elder of Laurels
Festerhide Boar
Gnaw to the Bone
Make a Wish
Orchard Spirit
Ranger’s Guile
Spider Spawning
Spidery Grasp
Travel Preparations
Villagers of Estwald
Dawntreader Elk
Deranged Outcast
Gravetiller Wurm
Grave Bramble
Grim Flowering
Hunger of the Howlpack
Scorned Villager
Somberwald Dryad
Ulvenwald Bear
Young Wolf

Manor Gargoyle
Wooden Stake
Drogskol Captain
Stromkirk Captain
Altar of the Lost
Heavy Mattock
Evolving Wilds

GB Land Destruction (4-1 FNM 9th Dec 2011)

With two weeks of Standard before Christmas I decided to brew a couple of new offbeat decks. It's not as if I need to worry about trying to maintain my rating anymore, so it's a chance to have some fun.

For week one I decided to try a very old-fashioned strategy that isn't seen very often in modern mtg: LAND DESTRUCTION. I used to love Creeping Mold back in the day, and now with Bramblecrush I get to play a LD spell that kills those pesky planeswalkers!

14 Forest

8 Swamp

2 Woodland Cemetery

4 Birds of Paradise

3 Llanowar Elves

2 Green Sun's Zenith

3 Rampant Growth

1 Mortarpod

2 Dungrove Elder

2 Sever the Bloodline

4 Bramblecrush

2 Maw of the Mire

4 Acidic Slime

1 Bloodgift Demon

1 Grave Titan

2 Wurmcoil Engine

2 Steel Hellkite

1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

1 Rune-Scarred Demon

1 Sorin's Vengeance

Sideboard:

1 Memoricide

3 Viridian Emissary

1 Creeping Corrosion

2 Massacre Wurm

1 Mortarpod

1 Dungrove Elder

1 Sorin's Vengeance

1 Curse of Death's Hold

1 Tree of Redemption

2 Tribute to Hunger

1 Witchbane Orb

This deck is in the style of Conley Woods Magical Christmas Land with quick mana acceleration into land destruction with big threats to put your opponent away. Note that this deck contains 34 mana sources and all of those basically only tap for mana, this means that when you play you must use your threats effectively and you should mulligan most hands that contain no acceleration.

In the sideboard it's important to be able to maintain a decent number of threats after boarding. Hence Massacre Wurm which can both clear an opponents board and beat down over something like Black Sun's Zenith.

(For once I got some playtesting in before FNM that definitely lead to some improvements - I initially had Solemn Simulacrum which were too slow, and I had too many GSZ targets)

We had 28 players at FNM, so we ran five 40-minute rounds (as well as playing I am also the FNM Judge).

Round 1: Alex playing Kessig Wolf Run (won 2-0)

Game 1 I prevent him from ever getting to six mana, and the only relevant creature he casts is Thrun which only delays his demise.

Game 2 is much stranger - I accelerate into threats and start beating down, but don't draw enough LD to prevent him from casting Primeval Titan, which then leads to a second and third (!) Primeval Titan, but I am able to win the race with my Wurmcoils despite his Kessig Wolf Runs by destroying every single red source in his deck.

1-0

Round 2: Graham playing Heartless Summoning / Remember the Fallen (won 2-0)

(This deck uses Remember the Fallen to recur things like Perilous Myr, Peace / Pierce Strider and Wurmcoil Engine)

In game 1 Sever the Bloodline does what it does and exiles his first two Wurmcoil Engines, which leaves him without anything meaningful to recur.

I board in Creeping Corrosion, Curse of Death's Hold and the two Massacre Wurms, and though I get a slow draw I am able to cast Massacre Wurm just in time to stabilise on 5 life, and after the first Wurm trades with a Wurmcoil I have a second to kill his Wurm tokens (he has Heartless Summoning). I am just able to kill him with Steel Hellkite before the Pierce Strider and Blistergrub he has recurs deal me the last five damage.

2-0

Round 3: Mike playing mono-red (won 2-0)

In game 1 Mike mulligans to a slow hand, and conveniently I don't draw any useless land destruction and am able to accelerate into Wurmcoil Engine whilst still on a comfortable life total.

I board out Bramblecrushes and Acidic Slimes for the various removal, anti-aggro and anti-burn cards in my sideboard which is looking slightly awkward when he plays a turn two Shrine of Burning Rage that I now have no answer for (oops). I start racing with Dungrove Elder and as I have more Forests in hand make the decision to tutor up a second Elder with Green Sun's Zenith rather than Tree of Redemption. My 5/5 Elders easily race his Shrine + Koth.

3-0

Round 4: Charlie playing UGR control (won 2-1)

(This is like a hybrid of the GR ramp decks and UR counterburn)

This is a very interactive matchup, where I have to try and use my LD to mess with his three colour manabase and keep him off Titan mana whilst also not running my few threats needlessly into his countermagic (ie playing round Mana Leak where possible - the game do go long).

In game 1 I resolve a quick Dungrove Elder but he has a Slagstorm before I can play my fourth Forest. I am able to Sorin's Vengeance him down to 5 (and myself up to 29) which buys me a lot of time as I've drawn both Sever the Bloodlines. I am able to sucker him into Dissipating I GSZ for 3 as he doesn't know he's already dealt with all the Dungrove Elders in my deck, and with Dissipate gone I can resolve a Rune-Scarred Demon (and search for Wurmcoil) which is too much for him to handle.

In game 2 I don't really get any pressure and don't draw a Sever the Bloodline so when he resolves a Wurmcoil Engine and then Consecrated Sphinx it's all over pretty quickly.

I get an ideal start in game 3 with acceleration into Bramblecrush, then Acidic Slime, then Wurmcoil Engine. Charlie's only answer to the Wurmcoil is double Incinerate, which works out very nice for him as he rips Slagstorm off the top of his library. The game gets rather drawn out and with not long left on the round and life totals about 20-10 in my favour I decide to flashback Sever the Bloodline to remove the Beast token (from a Beast Within) that's is preventing my Acidic Slime and Viridian Emissary from attacking. This turns out to be winning strategy.

4-0

Round 5: Jay playing UW Humans (lost 2-0)

In game 1 I don't draw Bramblecrush or Acidic Slime and am not able to get Steel Hellkite online fast enough to avoid losing to his Swords of War and Peace and Feast and Famine as he makes a Phyrexian Metamorph copy of the Hellkite to prevent me destroying his swords.

Game 2 sees him rapidly killing me with turn three and four Mirran Crusader, and it didn't help that every draw phase gave me an additional mana source after a kept a hand that already had mostly mana sources.

4-1

Final result: 4-1 (8-3 games), 2nd place.

UW Humans took first place (5-0) and I beat the other 4-1s on tiebreakers (they were Solar Flare and two Mono-red decks including my round 3 opponent).

Overall a successful outing for Land Destruction at FNM. Despite this I can't really recommend playing Land Destruction in standard, as with modern magic design it's not really very strong and it doesn't win you many friends.

Next week: SMALLPOX.

11/09/10 Cube Winston Draft

I think the draft was slightly marred by a shuffling problem that saw almost all the blue cards appear right at the bottom of the pile - consequently both of us thought the other was Blue. I tried for a WB Toughness / Pestilence deck, but though I got Pestilence + Crypt Rats + Evincar's Justice, I didn't have enough black cards.

I built a pretty awful WBg control deck that Matt beat twice, and then changed round to a WRg aggressive deck that was a lot better and won the majority of the rest of the games. (Though Matt's deck still looks better to me).

Matt
Cloud of Faeries 1U
Gemhide Sliver 1G
Sakura-Tribe Elder 1G
Thought Courier 1U
Spiketail Hatchling 1U
Thalakos Seer UU
Civic Wayfinder 2G
Yavimaya Elder 2GG
Snapping Drake 3U
Flametongue Kavu 3R
Thieving Magpie 2UU
Waterspout Djinn 2UU
Wickerbough Elder 2G
Indrik Stomphowler 3GG
Gerrard's Irregular 4G
Krosan Tusker 5GG
Lightning Bolt R
Symbiosis 1G
Pyroclasm 1G
Compulsion 1U
Arcane Teachings 2R
Coastal Piracy 2UU
Overrun 2GGG
Repeal XU
8 Forests
6 Islands
2 Mountains
Crosis Catacombs

Simon
Goblin Patrol R
Basking Rootwalla G
Mother of Runes W
Hearth Kami 1R
Goblin Skycutter 1R
Soltari Monk WW
Soltari Crusader 2W
Defender en-Vec 3W
Hunted Wumpus 3G
Squallmonger 3G
Angel of Mercy
Staunch Defenders 3WW
Elephant Guide 2G
Moldervine Cloak 2G
Arc Lightning 2R
Rhystic Lightning 2R
Threaten 2R
Bound in Silence 2W
Akroma's Blessing 2W
Whispersilk Cloak 3
Grab the Reins 3R
Rod of Ruin 4
Rolling Thunder XRR
Darksteel Ingot
7 Plains
6 Mountains
4 Forests
Rith's Grove

31/08/10 Cube Winston Draft

One key in Winston drafting is that you will usually end up in three colours, so cards that are only require a single coloured mana are much better than those that require two.

I was a relatively sensible UGr, Matt never really settled his colours and ended up Wgru. Neither of played any black - most of the black cards were BB.

Despite Matt's Fireball AND Rolling Thunder (!) I won the majority of the games (something like 5-2). Having multiple Giant Growths helped a lot.

Simon:
Fireslinger 1R
Waterfront Bouncer 1U
Spiketail Hatchling 1U
Stingscourger 1R
Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch 1U
Man-o-War 2U
Spiketail Hatchling 1UU
Simian Grunt 2G
Hunted Wumpus 3G
Cudgel Troll 2GG
Briarhorn 3G
Wickerbough Elder 3G
Pendrell Drake 3U
Avalanche Riders 3R
Ancient Hydra 4R
Crashing Boars 3GG
Giant Growth G
Remove Soul 1U
Lash Out 1R
Rampant Growth 1G
Invigorate 2G
Compulsive Research 2U
Terramorphic Expanse
Treva's Ruin
Izzet Boilerworks
7 Forest
6 Island
2 Mountain

Matt:
Defiant Falcon 1W
Youthful Knight 1W
Whipcorder WW
Gemhide Sliver 1G
Nightwind Glider 2W
Thermal Glider 2W
Cradle Guard 1GG
Gloomwidow 2G
Voice of All 2WW
Stuanch Defenders 3WW
Roar of the Wurm 6G
Errant Erphemeron 6U
Shelter 1W
Pacifism 1W
Kor Chant 2W
Radiant's Judgment 2W
Fireshrieker 3
Demolish 3R
Tower Above 2/G 2/G 2/G
Repeal xU
Fireball xR
Rolling Thunder xRR
Darksteel Ingot 3
Dromar's Cavern
8 Plains
5 Forest
2 Mountain
1 Island

14/08/2010 M11 Games Day (2nd)

I played White Weenie at the M11 Games Day in Southampton (or you might call it Boros or Wr Landfall though the only red cards were in the sideboard). The format was three rounds of Swiss followed by a Top 8.

Round 1: Beat Grixis Control (UBR) 2-0.
Game 1 he can't beat a White Knight with an Adventuring Gear as I leave Terramorphics untapped to play around Lightning Bolt. After boarding I have Kor Firewalkers AND White Knights and I win pretty easily again.

Round 2: Beat UW Control 2-1
I get a free win as he has a Deck Registration error and we are playing at Competitive level. He takes game 2 as I have a mediocre draw that doesn't include an answer for his Baneslayer. I have an aggressive start on the play in Game 3, and can Path his Wall of Reverence and still have a Brave The Elements to attack past his Baneslayer for lethal.

Round 3: Lost 2-1 to Mono-Black
I manage to win game 1 with a White Knight (at one point he attacks his Nantuko Shade into it mistakenly and has to let it die as he can't afford the BB to save it), but I manaflood slightly in games 2 and 3 (only four spells in game 3) and lose. Abyssal Persecutor is pretty good against my deck and I never saw a White Knight after game 1.

Top 8: Beat UG Turboland 2-0.
Basically he didn't do much and I pretty quickly goldfished him in both games as my pressure includes either Steppe Lynx or Adventuring Gear plus plenty of Evolving Wilds. As the match took about 15 minutes we play a third game for fun which basically goes the same way, then a fourth which he finally manages to win. I still have lethal on the board despite his Obstinate Baloth, Primeval Titan and Jace TMS when he casts Emrakul.

Top 4: Beat UW Control 2-1.
Game 1 I a get an Adventuring Gear on the table early and so am able to attack through his Walls of Omen. He struggles to find answers, but eventually has Day of Judgement. I resolve a Kor Duelist, protect it from Condemn with Brave The Elements (he has Mana Leak but I can just pay 3) and attack for over 10 damage for the win.
Game 2 I get a weaker draw, but have removal in hand for his assumed Baneslayers / Jace. Sadly he kills me with two Sphinx of Jar Isle.
Game 3 I have a good draw with several aggressive 1-drops (he can't Mana Leak them all) and Sejiri Steppes to attack past his wall. He is able to Day of Judgement when on 2, and has a Wall for my one creature, but when he taps out for Baneslayer I play Kor Skfisher to bounce a Steppe and attack for the final 2 damage.

Final: Lose 2-0 to Bant.
Game 1 I mulligan down to five, and game 2 I keep a sketchy 7 on the play. In both games I get overwhelmed by Fauna Shaman, Knight of the Reliquary, Vengevine and Sovereign of Lost Alara (he never plays a non-rare card other than some basic land).
I should have mulliganed game 2 - didn't draw my sideboarded Pyroclasm which would have been really good as he does things like using Fauna Shaman to get Noble Heirach for more mana or my sideboarded Relic of Progenitus (which lets Pyroclasm kill Knight of the Reliquary as well as taking out Vengevines).
The only incident of note in the match occurs when he attacks with a 5/5 Knight of the Reliquary and I block with a 3/3 Student and a White Knight. He does nothing except say something like 'ok' or 'sure' and then I point out I have 5 points of first strike. He says he wants to Path to Exile so I call for the Judge (got to give him something to do) as we are at competitive level and I think he definitely passed and want to be sure the Knight dies.

Despite a disappointing end, 2nd was a pretty satisfying result for a tournament full of considerably more powerful decks than my usual local FNMs. As well as the Top 8 Foil Mitotic Slime I won an Intro Pack and six assorted Gateway / Prerelease foils.

Decklist: White Weenie
4 Steppe Lynx
3 Student of Warfare
1 Kor Duelist
1 Kitesail Apprentice
4 White Knight
4 Kor Skyfisher
3 Ranger of Eos
2 Emeria Angel

4 Adventuring Gear
1 Sigil of Distinction
1 Sword of Vengeance
1 Path to Exile
3 Brave the Elements
2 Oblivion Ring

11 Plains
4 Sejiri Steppe
1 Mountain
1 Smoldering Spires
1 Arid Mesa
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Evolving Wilds

Sideboard
3 Kor Firewalker
3 Honor the Pure
3 Pyroclasm
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Manabarbs
1 Combust
1 Act of Treason

PS. Thanks for @saintjw for the loan of a couple of Students and an Arid Mesa.

02/08/10 Cube winston draft

After streamlining the no-rares cube I had a Winston draft against Matt on Tuesday evening. I beat him 7-5.

Simon: UWr
Spiketail Hatchling 1U
Mistmeadow Skulk 1W
Soltari Priest WW
Rishadan Airship 2U
Nightwing Glider 2W
Phantom Warrior 1UU
Knight of Dawn 1WW
Killer Whale 3UU
Ancestors Chosen 5WW
Sigil of Sleep U
Condemn W
Rushing River 2U
Capsize 1UU
Circular Logic 2U
Thirst for Knowledge 2U
Foil 2UU
Fact or Fiction 3U
Concentrate 2UU
Rod of Ruin 4
Swell of Courage 3WW
Repeal XU
Fireball XR
Izzet Signet 2
Darksteel Ingot 3
Terramorphic Expanse
8 Islands
7 Plains
1 Mountain
(Sideboard: Ray of Distortion)

Matt: RB
Kris Mage R
Martyr of Ashes R
Sickle Ripper 1B
Mogg Flunkies 1R
Foul Imp BB
Boneknitter 1B
Vulshok Sorceror 1RR
Vampire Hounds 2B
Flametongue Kavu 3R
Talrum Mintoaur 2RR
Cateran Kidnappers 2BB
Gravedigger 3B
Hulking Cyclops 3RR
Scoria Cat 3RR
Boldwyr Intimidator 5RR
Vendetta B
Seal of Fire R
Incinerate 1R
Diabolic Edict 1B
Hymn to Tourach BB
Rift Bolt 2R
Smash 2R
Snuff Out 3B
Pestilence 2BB
Evincaar's Justice 2BB
9 Mountains
8 Swamps
(Sideboard: Demolish)

21/08/09 Roborally, Amazing Labyrinth, O Zoo Le Mio

For once, 'we must play games again soon', lead to actual playing of games!

I went round to Kerry's on Friday evening, where Fee was. Sadly Matt came down with an illness and called in sick, so it was just the three of us. Unless you count the many drunk people that seemed to be continuously walking past Kerry's house.

We started with RoboRally, which surprisingly I had never played before. Normally I can pick up games quickly from the rules, but unfortunately the Roborally rulebook is pretty bad - one of those disjointed rulebooks that put things in a strange order, some rules are just on the additional player aid, and some tiles are poorly explained (from an online review -"expect that a few rules - such as moving onto a turning conveyor belt - will be poorly worded, causing confusion").

We had enough trouble trying to setup the game. The setup recommended by the game (six checkpoints across four boards) is laughably long, so we settled for four checkpoints across four boards. It turns out this was both too spread out and slightly too long. I would guess four checkpoints across two boards might be reasonable. When we had worked out where we were supposed to start and put the flags down the game could finally begin.

I got a reasonable start, pushing Kerry down a pit near the first flag, but then just missed the flag when I got pushed off it onto a conveyor belt. I then had a 'turning conveyor belt problem' which left me facing the wrong direction with a hand containing only one turn but three Move3 cards. This left me little choice but to fly of in the wrong direction, leaving me miles behind Fee and Kerry. As I wasn't enjoying the game I decided to drop, so Fee and Kerry decided to just play to the next Flag. If we had played all four flags I think the game would have lasted all evening!

Fee and Kerry both reached the flag on the same turn, which lead to some interesting maneuvers. Fee was able to push Kerry off the Flag for the win.

For our second game, we played one of my Birthday presents - Ra: The Dice Game. It is basically a Yahtzee style game where you use your dice rolls to acquire Pharaohs, Civs, Niles and Monuments which score pretty much identically to original Ra. Unfortunately Fee hadn't played Ra for some time and Kerry had never played, so the rules explanation made the game seem more complicated than it really was. Luckily it all seems a lot easier once we started playing, and the rules summary cards for each player are excellent.

The game seemed to play very quickly. Fee and Kerry collected monuments, whilst I concentrated more on the Nile, and Fee two sets of three monuments was enough for her to beat me by a couple of points. Unfortunately I now realise that I set the game up incorrectly each Epoch, as I was starting with the Ra on the 4 player space, not the 3 player - this may have made monuments a better strategy!

Though Fee wanted to play Ra again, but Kerry was keen to learn another new game so we tried O Zoo Le Mio (aka ZooSim). This is a quick light blind bidding game played over 5 'years' (rounds) that is let down slightly by some poor components - the colours of the exhibits on the zoo tiles don't exactly match the visitors and the relevant information (the * rating of the exhibits) isn't clearly enough displayed. The animal pictures on the tiles add flavour, but I think the game might actually play better without them. I had a reasonable start, but my best exhibits weren't able to grow in year 4 and I lost several visitors to Kerry. She ended up the winner, while Fee recovered from a poor start to take second (you score points for each visitor equal to the the year, so you need to be strong at the end).

Finally we had a quick game of Amazing Labyrinth. This is a fun kids maze game, where the board consists of movable tiles. On each turn you have to move one row (or column) of tiles, causing the path connections to change and then move as far through the maze as you wish. The objective of the game is to be the first to visit each of the locations you have been dealt. I seem to always do well at this game and won again, a turn or two ahead of Fee.

Then I could have left, but decided to stay a little longer to get a quieter night time bus. So we played a couple of hands of Circus Flohcati (Flea Circus). I won the second with a very early Gala Show for a new lowest wining score record of 36.

Then it really was time to leave.

13-08-09 Beowulf, Munchkin

I have some friends who can't make the usual Sunday night gaming (though if they all could we'd have far too many players). Every time I manage to get together with them for games we always say 'we must do this more often', but somehow it doesn't work out that way.

Anyway, with me being busy on several Sunday's in August we managed to arrange a weekday evening at Kerry's in Ryde. It was me, Kerry, Bekki, Scott and Tony. Tony was late, so we already had Beowulf set out when he arrived.

Beowulf doesn't hasn't got too many plays recently (nothing has really apart from Race for the Galaxy and Dominion) but everyone seemed very keen to play it. The risking adds a random element that can let someone get lucky once or twice, but you can't really be successful without good judgement on how much to bid and push your luck, and correctly valuing points, gold and cards.

As has happened previously I drop out without playing a card in an early auction whilst everyone else went to about 4 or 5 cards. None of the early auctions are that vital - I try to conserve cards early on and pick up some cheap gold.

I think I always took Scrolls at selection as I think it is vital to try and get at least some gold. Generally Gold seems undervalued, whilst the others tend to overvalue the special cards - especially the cards that just provide symbols - if you played several cards to just gain a card with some symbols have you really gained anything? I take a couple of wounds in the midgame, but everything is under control as I have Discard two scratches and Refuse a wound, scratch or misfortune in my hand.

Everything pretty much goes to plan, I think I am leading in points coming to the final few auctions as I have cashed in five cards for five points and two cards for three points in the Opportunities and still have a very good hand for the final battle with the Dragon. I win that and also have a decent showing at the final totting up of cards and treasure for a comfortable six point win from Tony. Another really enjoyable game of Beowulf, a game that deserves a much higher score on BGG (I rate it a 9 because I am very stingy with my 10s).

After that Scott has requested we play Munchkin. I haven't played munchkin for over 10 years, and this game reminded me why. Over the first five turns I can achieve absolutely nothing, and I decide I would have more fun by dropping from the game. By pretty much unanimous agreement the game is halted about 10 minutes later. Nothing more to say about that really.

02/08/09: Notre Dame, RFTG: RvI

Only three of us this week, Tony, Colin and me.

We started with another new game from the recent Euro Math Trade - Notre Dame.

In Notre Dame each play drafts three cards from their action deck of 9, each card corresponding to an area of the board and offering various resources. You need cubes to play onto the board, coins to bribe persons and buy VP at Notre Dame and you need VP to win. And don't forget to not let the rat problem get out of hand.

Once three rounds have occurred a period ends and the 9 card decks are reassembled. I started the first period by making two plays into my park. This set me up for plenty of bonus VPs, but meant I would obviously struggle for resources most of the game. Colin concentrated in the Hotel during the first period, which is unfortunate as it's probably the weakest building, and he was the only person to make any coach moves. I think Tony concentrated generally on resources, ending the first period with more cubes and coins than he started with.

During the second period the rat problem intensified. Plague levels had slowly increased to the point where at the end of round 4 or 5 all three us at were at either 8 or 9 in the harbour. The next turn the cards revealed six rats! Tony already had a reasonable presence in the Hospital and was able to kill enough rats in his turn to be okay and Colin used the minstrel to move 3 cubes from his Hotel to the Hospital. I just accepted I was going to 'bust' this turn and didn't worry about it - in fact I went over 9 for most of the remaining turns. This meant I ended up with considerably less cubes on the board than Tony whilst Colin did not have plague problems, but did run short of cubes in hand and had to move cubes around a few times.

For the second and third periods I mostly got points from collecting messages, and I got decent VP from the Master Carpenter (point for every occupied region) . Tony scored big on Beggar King (points for low plague levels) , Master Carpenter and the Mayor (3VP for each region with 3+ cubes) . Colin had a few messages and scored for the Lady of the Court (VP for each cube in the most occupied region). Notre Dame points were split 4/4 each period, everyone visiting twice. Colin purchased 6VP on his first period visit, but ran short of gold later so this was a mistake I think.

Result: Tony low-mid 60s, Simon mid 50s, Colin high 30s

After Notre Dame we played a couple of games of Face for the Galaxy with both expansions (Gathering Storm and Rebel vs Imperium). Goals were on, and takeovers active for the second game. The second game saw a takeover attempt, the first I have seen! I managed a second place in both games - in the first I had Trade League plus several big VP alien worlds and 3VP Alien goal, and in the second a mixed bag that saw me claim 3VP for both first to discard and full house of powers and 5Vp for 3+ explore powers. I still don't really feel that RvI added a huge amount to the game - though it does seem that we shuffle the deck during play a lot less now. I guess that is good, given it's size!

Next weekend: Grand Prix Brighton! (Magic 2010 sealed)

26/07/09: Hacienda, Dominion: Intrigue

On Sunday evening we had our last 'large' gaming sessions for a while. People have various summer events coming up (GP Brighton, Tintagel) so it'll be a while until we have 4+ players.

Three of my new games from the July Euro Maths trade had arrived - Hacienda, Elasund & In the Year of the Dragon. We decided to play Hacienda (on the symmetric map)

After the rules explanation, Fiona began the game and over the first few turns was able to claim a long chain of land on the top side (she actually found an 8 in a row from her opening hand) , whilst Tony did the same on the bottom. I cut off one side of Tony's land chain and started connecting to markets, even though I know from online play that the winning strategy is to make a huge land chain.

At the halfway stage I was connected to 5 markets and in 3rd place slightly behind Tony & Fee. Colin was in last. In the second half I was able to increase that to 7 markets, but Colin cut me off from the 8th the turn before I was going to claim it. So I finished 3rd behind Tony & Fiona. With their huge land chains they were able to make loads of money and buy lots of Water tiles and Hacienda. Maybe next time we will play the asymmetric map, even though that is supposed to have some overpowered 'sweet' spots.

We didn't really have time for another new game after that, so we played a couple of hand of Intrigue only Dominion. The first was rather attack heavy with Swindler, Minion and Torturer. No Secret Chamber, but plenty of ways to remove Curses - Masquerade, Trading Post and Upgrade.

As is usual for me on a 3/4 split with Swindler in play I bought Swindler/Swindler. Soon the Curses started piling up in everyone's deck. I was purchasing Minions as my other buy after seing Tony use them very effectively several times. Sadly Tony also cast Minion for cards when my hand was Minion/Minion/Minion/x/x and I knew there was a Swindler in the last four cards of my library.

After I got a Minion swindled into a Duke, I decided this was going to be a lowish game, and that I should just be grabbing points. So I did that for the rest of the game, several times just casting Swindler and buying an Estate. This strategy almost paid off, I finished third - 24/23/22/18. I did realise my one mistake afterward - when swindling 5s I should be handing out Torturers - with my weak deck (full of VP & Curses) discarding 2 cards hardly hurts me.

In the second game Swindler had left (we use a 3 card evolution) and the new cards offered more action chain possibilities as they included Mining Village and Conspirator. I tried to set up a chain deck with Mining Village and Courtyard, but it was too slow and I felt like I was still setting up when Provinces started going. I think I should have bought some Scouts, cause Scout + Mining Village seems pretty good in an action chain deck. I must have also mistimed the end of game, I had a turn where I 'went off' including two Bridge and bought a Province and a Duchy, but I should have trashed some Mining Village's along the way, then I would have got double Province. Oh well - third again.

34/07/09 - Dominion: Intrigue

On Friday evening me Leon and Tony, played a couple of games of Intrigue only Dominion (I only realised it was Intrigue only when Tony mentioned it afterwards.) We played an evolving setup, which included Duke and Harem in both games.

I lost the first, getting too carried away with trying to set up a Pawn + Conspirator deck (after using Steward to trash my Estates) that wasn't really effective. Tony had a more effective Conspirator deck, using Minion to generate income and new hands. But we both lost to Leon's simple plan of buying Duchies and Dukes - he had 6 Duchies and multiple Dukes.

In the second game Torturer was available (though Secret Chamber also appeared), and Tony fell into the Harem trap - buying Harem's from the outset over Gold. This might be a reasonable plan in a VERY attack heavy tableaux where winning scores are often miniscule (ie we had a game with Swindler, Thief, Bureaucrat and Witch with a winning score of 3), but here I think it hurt him. He set up a similar Minion deck to the last game, whilst I concentrated more on Torturer. Mining Village helped to chain Actions together, and with my Gold I was able to buy enough Provinces to win. Leon tried to win with Dukes again, but couldn't buy enough to win - by the end Tony and I were both Torturing him too frequently.

Intrigue only Dominion was quite interesting - some Intrigue cards really come more to life in this environment.

06/09/08 SSE draft

I decided to go over to Southampton for the last Shadowmmor draft before the Shards Pre-release in a few weeks time.

I took a Prison Term first pick, the next two picks were uninteresting (one was a Elsewhere Flask that I took just to keep options open). A fourth pick Burn Trail seemed like a sign to be in Red.

This time I made sure of getting enough cheap Red guys to use the Burn Trail effectively. Silkbind Faeries were also going round a little to late it seemed, so I was able to pick up a couple and a Power of Fire, leaving me with RW or RU as options going into the final booster, Eventide.

The cheap red guys became even more of a priority with the first Eventide pick, the excellent Crackleburr - a bomb in the deck I was drafting.

The deck

2 Intimidator Initiate
2 Rustrazor Butcher
1 Riverfall Mimic
2 Tattermunge Duo
2 Noggle Bandit
2 Silkbind Faerie
1 Crackleburr
1 Noggle Bridgebreaker
1 Scuzzback Marauder
1 Outrage Shaman

1 Spectral Procession
1 Cenn's Enlistenment

1 Niveous Wisps
1 Power of Fire
1 Double Cleave
1 Prison Term
1 Burn Trail

2 Manamorphose
10 Mountains
6 Swamps

I won all four matches to win the draft. Crackleburr won several games on his own.

Netrunner deck; Rio de Janeiro City Grid

Netrunner is the one of most interesting CCG ever created in my opinion. This is one of the decks I still have built.

Rio de Janeiro City Grid
Cost: 1
Upgrade-Region-Random
Roll a die whenever Runner passes a piece of rezzed ice during a run on this fort. On a 1, end the run.

In most Corp decks RdJ City Grid isn't worthwhile, it's just too unreliable. To make RDJ work you need big forts. REALLY big forts. With the addition of 'payback' ice (that you get bits from when you rez them) in the Proteus expansion this became possible.

The deck (50 cards)

Agendas (6)
4 Corporate Downsizing
2 Political Overthrow

Upgrades (8)
6 Rio de Janeiro City Grid
4 Chester Mix
2 Rasmin Bridger
2 Obsfucated Fortress

Operations (3)
3 Off Site Backups

Nodes (1)
1 Bel Digmo Antibody

Ice - Code Gates (7)
3 Misleading Access Menu
3 Quandry
1 Mazer

Ice - Walls (10)
6 Snowbank
2 Data Wall 2.0
1 Walking Wall
1 Glacier

Ice - Sentry (9)
7 Washed Up Solo Construct
1 Fragmentation Storm
1 Data Naga

With this deck the plan is to build three really big forts; R&D, HQ and one subsidiary (this deck is weak against Shredder Uplink Protocol - it can't effectively defend a fourth fort).

Typically you begin by setting up as much defense as you can on R&D and HQ. Then once those are secure setup a sudsidiary fort and try to score a Corporate Downsizing.

When you do, shuffle all the Agendas in your hand back into R&D. With this deck you want the game to go as long as is possible (warning; games using this deck can much longer than normal games of Netrunner). You can't lose due to running out of cards as you have Bel-Digmo Antibody, with Off-Site Backups to return it from Archives should the Runner manage to trash it from R&D or HQ.

More typically Off-Site Backups is used to return Rasmin Bridger or Obsfucated Fortress as these are crucial to the decks long term strategy - to make the Runner pay for runs that will fail. (Obviously RdJ City Grid is also crucial but the deck plays so many of these and the trash cost is so high that it isn't normally productive to trash these).

To make the runner lose bits on each run, each fort needs to have some ice that will cost the runner bits to pass, and the earlier in the run the better. Walking Wall and Glacier are excellent for this with their ability to move themselves. Rasmin Bridger means every ice will cost at 1 additional bit to pass, and Obsfucated Fortress will mean every run will cost the runner in full, even if you roll a 1 after the first piece of Ice!

Data Naga and Fragmentation Storm are there to keep the runner honest, so that they can't assume that all of the Ice is harmless.

This deck has one major weakness - it isn't that good! Even with 9 pieces of ice on a fort RDJ will still fail to stop a Runner 20% of the time. You are relying on the time needed for the runner to regain the bits needed for each failure to score your agendas. This is okay for Corporate Downsizing, but it's much more difficult to score a Political Overthrow.

Given this weakness the deck is only realy suitable for casual play. But as it takes so long to play it isn't really suitable for that either! Still, it was fun to play occasionally and remains an interesting design.

06/01/08: Ticket to Ride 1910, Traumfabrik, For Sale

The usual five of us met up at my flat for a Sunday evening of games. We decided to start with something “not too thinky” – Ticket to Ride (1910 Tickets + Bonus).

I kept my opening 3 tickets. Two of them were northwestern Cities to Miami, and the other was Salt Lake to a third northwestern City (they were Toronto, Chicago and New York).

On my second turn I claimed Toronto-Pittsburgh, and then I spent the early part of the game connecting my NW Cities through Pittsburgh and down toward Florida. By this stage both of the direct west routes out of Salt Lake City had been taken, but I had a couple of green in hand so I claimed Salt Lake – Helena a few turns later. I then worked on connecting Helena to Chicago and collecting the Purple trains I needed to get down to Miami.

After connecting Helena to Chicago and collecting the trains needed to reach Miami via Charleston I decided to draw more tickets. I hit the jackpot!

Los Angles – Atlanta
Las Vegas – a NW City I’m already in
A NW City I’m already in – Charleston.

I was worried that I might get blocked out of Salt Lake – Las Vegas – Los Angeles, but I made it okay, and then had time to claim Atlanta, Charleston and Miami a couple of turns before the game ended.

With my six (!) completed tickets I scored 140 points and won by about 20 points. Fiona was second on about 120 points. After completing her tickets she decided not to collect more, assuming I had the most tickets bonus won and she ended the game by claiming a couple of 15 point connections. And speeding up the game to try and make me fail my tickets was a reasonable plan too.

I really like how the 1910 tickets and most completed tickets bonus shake up the strategies compared to the unbalanced original. I won by 20 points after making multiple 2 train connections, only two 5 train connections and no 6s! (That would be impossible in the original edition).

After Ticket to Ride everyone demanded more tea. I acquiesced, on the condition that they pick out and setup another game whilst I’m gone. I didn’t want to come back in ten minutes to find them still discussing what to play.

When I returned they were setting out Traumfabrik. I think this might have been the first time we have played five handed.

After Tony wins the first **** director, the next auction is a couple of actors (one a guest star) and something else. The two actors should be enough for first picks at the first turn parties, and that should offer the possibility of finishing a film in time to win the first season best film award. So I decided to bid 11 to automatically win it (in hindsight I might have won with a lower bid – but I would guess that If I’d bid 8 that would have tempted somebody to bid 9 etc).

So my 11 won, and I got a good tile at the first party. All I needed was music (or an Agency) at the final party to complete a film, and I was picking first… There weren’t any. Tony also only needed one tile to complete a film but he was picking last and got Reiner Knizia who promptly got fired! (Back into the box).

So the first season 5 point award was unclaimed. During the second season I was still looking for music to complete my yellow film, but Fiona was also close to completing hers and stealing my 5 points! I bid her up to 11 in the auction with the tile she needed, but she decided it was worth it. Her film scores (4), a good early contender for Worst Film.

During this season Colin completed a Green film for (19)! That looked to make him an early favourite. There was a good chance that it would earn him 25 points of awards (first green, best second season film, best third season film, best green film) – it did.

Though I had lost out on the first film bonus I was aiming for I still had the best collection of actors and pretty high value tiles. The problem was I wasn’t sure where I was going to get any awards. However during the third season I won the **** director and was able to complete a Yellow film for 15. This put me in the lead for Best Yellow and made me a contender for Best Direction.

In the final season I was able to get the Director needed to win best Director – if I could finish King Kong. Thankfully I was able to win the tile needed at the last auction and didn’t have to rely on getting lucky at the party.

I thought Colin had won due to the many awards he won for his first film (and he also won Worst Film), but with Best Yellow and Best Director I beat him by a few points. Other than his 19 his films weren’t worth much, whilst mine were consistently good.

After the game Tony congratulated Colin. Colin pointed out that I had beaten him. Tony: “I’ve given up trying to win…” (Referring to the fact that I’ve won all six games we’ve played since Christmas…).

We ended with a couple of quick games of For Sale. Colin and I continued our trend of doing slightly better then average, with Fee and Tony less successful (Tony forgot there was a sixth auction in the first game!). Colin won the first game, Bekki the second.

Next week I think we’re going to play Aladdin’s Dragons, which I’ve never played before.

29/12/07 - Power Grid, For Sale, Ticket to Ride (1910)

Five of us met up for games at Tony's house: Tony, me, Fiona, Colin and Rob (down for Christmas).

We started with a game of Power Grid on the USA map. The north-eastern region was unused.

I took the 5 cost plant first turn and Kansas City as my opening city. Rob was on the eastern coast with Tony in between me and Rob. Fiona and Colin were out west.

On the second turn I got 2Oil/Coal-4cities (21?) at cost, and with my relatively favourable turn order bought as much Coal and Oil as I could. A few turns later I also picked up 2Garbage-3Cities for cost, and soon after I triggered step 2.

At that stage I thought I was doing well. All of the goods became very cheap during step 2 - I think this was due to the many Wind Turbines in play. I quickly got a five city oil plant, and then was able to upgrade my garbage plant to 3Garbage-6 Cities (31?). At the time when I bought this the market was 3 lower capacity plants and this one, and after I bought it there weren't any more high capacity plants available until the final turn. I think I got it far too cheap.

So I looked well set for the win. I was almost able to win by connecting to (and powering) fifteen cities the turn before step 3, but Fiona spotted this and expanded agressively into cities I would have needed. So I waited on 13, with plants and fuel to power 15, and step 3 arrived next turn.

There was an outside chance that Rob or Fiona could beat me by powering 16 cities, but the fierce competition for the available 7 capacity plants made that unlikely - Tony and Colin both needed them and had been stockpiling cash.

Final Result
Simon 15 Cities / ~120E
Rob 15 Cities / ~50E
Fiona 15 Cities / ~10E
Tony 14 Cities / ~30E
Colin 14 Cities / ~20E (had sufficient plants for 15 but not enough cash to connect)

A good game, and for once it didn't take too long (just over 2 hours). I can understand the comments on BGG that the USA map is unbalanced for beginners. I think I can see how an opening position on the (expensive) West Coast shold be played, but I don't think the others have worked it out yet.

After Power Grid we played a few hands of For Sale. Whilst there is certainly a lot of luck involved (the auction mechanic can sometimes leave you with no good choices and force you to drop, giving everyone else cheap stuff, and blind bidding is inherently random) there is still some room for strategy and skill, and I think our results bore that out. Colin and I seem to have got the hang of it, whilst Fiona struggles with the blind bidding converting good property portfolios into poor scores.

A striking example of bad play - the following sequence happened (twice!) : too high opening bid followed by pass, pass, pass, pass. So somebody paid for the highest card whilst the others were all distributed for free.

Also Tony has noted that an non winning odd bid of X will costs the same as a non winning even bid of X-1, but hasn't properly thought through the implications of this.

So Colin won two of the three games and I had a first, a second and a third.

We ended with a game of Ticket to Ride with the 1910 Tickets and 15 point most routes bonus. We feel these really improve the game.

I kept Atlanta-LA and Nashville-Vancouver as my opening tickets. With sets like these I feel the best plan is to connect up the 'ends' and then fund a route cross-country. So I claim Nashville-Atlanta first turn, and then start collecting for LA-Vancouver. I get LA-SF, and then a few turns later it all kicks off around Vancouver...

Rob is sitting on my right, Fiona on my left. I can't remember the exact sequence but Rob claims Seattle-Calgary and Calgary-Helena. So my best route in Vancouver is now straight up the coast. So I claim Portland-Seattle-Vancouver. Rob then takes one of them as well, and Fiona is blocked out of the NW cities. She can't complete one of her tickets!

This means she probably can't win - unless she can catch most of the other players with unfinished tickets as well. So she speeds up the game, concentrating on the long routes.

There is a small hiccup in my plan when the green trains I have been saving for SF-Portland become useless when Colin claims that connection. So now I need Pinks, but there are literally none turning up. After a few turns of bad draws of the top I end up taking Locomotives from the display - seems like the only way I'll get that connection.

Eventually I make it, and get across the country fairly smoothly (SF, Salt Lake, Denver, Kansas, St Louis). Next turn I take Destination Tickets and strike lucky - one I've already done and for another I just need to get to Chicago. Luckily I have the trains needed in hand, cause Fiona ends the game.

On my last turn I claim St Louis-Chicago. The 48 points for my four tickets and the 15 points most tickets bonus is enough to take me from last to first. Which came as a surprise - I thought I was too far behind.

Overall a successful evening for me. Clearly the Strongbow I was drinking gave me an unfair advantage!

Games: Mar - Dec 07

According to the games I logged at BGG this is what I've been playing since my last post:

San Juan 19 - I don't play as much as I used to, but for me this remains the classic two player game.

No Thanks! 9 - A fun filler. It replaced Circus Flohcati for a while, but in turn has been replaced by For Sale. Once everybody knows what's going on it seems like the game is more decided by which cards urn up than the players actions.

Alhambra 8 - Remains a firm favourite of some of my group.

Lost Cities 8 - A regular two-player filler.

Diamant 7 - My game group has got bigger in the last few months, so anything that plays up to six is getting more play.

Power Grid 7 - This is the current favourite 'heavy' game for my group. I don't like it as much as the others (I'd rather play Princes of Florence or Amun-Re).

Scrabble 6 - Ocassional evening games with a friend.

Circus Flohcati 5 - Filler, sees less play now I have No Thanks and For Sale.

For Sale 5 - I really enjoy this. Very easy to play 'just one more game'.

Puerto Rico 5 - Still a great game. Whatever happened to the second expansion that was rumoured?

Torres 5 - Torres seems like it should be a chess-like brain-burner, but it doesn't play that way. One three-player game saw the newbie win!

Ingenious 4 - Two players is fun, three player has seating issue problems. I haven't tried the four-player partnership version.

Jambo 4 - I prefer San Juan.

Apples to Apples British Isles Edition 3 - Fun, but the UK card mix seems a little off to me somehow.

Runebound Second Edition 3 - Multiplayer solitaire effectively and has runaway leader problems.

Blue Moon 2 - I like this but don't really have anybody to play regularly against.
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers 2 - I prefer this to original Carc.

Carcassonne: The Castle 2 - And with two players, I prefer the Castle.

Citadels 2 - Playing in English really helps, and some of the expansion stuff is interesting. One guy in my group really dislikes this though.

Great Wall of China 2 - Okay, but nothing special.

HeroScape Master Set: Rise of the Valkyrie 2 - Mindless dice rolling fun if you're in the right mood.

Hollywood Blockbuster 2 - I really like this, it should get played more.

Liar's Dice 2 - Fun, but somehow the rules regarding bids of 1s seem slightly wonky to me.

Razzia 2 - Useful for large numbers, but not played so much as I have got other games that can handle six (For Sale, Diamant)

Atlantic Star 2 - Okay game that works with six (like Alhambra you just have to accept that it's going to be slighltly out of your control and go with flow)

Blood Bowl: Living RuleBook 1 - A good game but it takes too long, and can get overcomplicated once experienced teams with many skills face off.

Caesar and Cleopatra 1 - Played once, didn't think much of this.

Carcassonne 1 - I prefer H&G

Caylus Magna Carta 1 - Only played once, and that was with the basic rules - which suck. That's a shame, from my online plays I'm pretty certain this is a good game.

Domaine 1 - A good game, but only really at it's best with three players which limits it's plays.

Family Fluxx 1 - Family Fluxx seems to end more realiably than normal Fluxx (probably a function of having a much smaller deck).

Kaboodl 1 - Silly set collecting card game.

Lunch Money 1 - Slilly overcomplicated card game that gets dragged out by the need to keep checking the rules.

Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 2 - The 1910 destination tickets and 15pt most tickets bonus greatly improve TTR.

Tigris & Euphrates 1 - Still a great game.

I also played some Shadowfist during the year, after the release of the new set.

Sunday 25/02/07: Puerto Rico, Citadels

After a couple of weeks with just the three of us, numbers were back up again this week. Bekki and Colin were both there, and Marleena turned up later.

I though we might get to start with El Grande which I was looking forward to (Tony had bought it the last couple of weeks, and apparently it’s best with 5), but he didn’t have it with him.

Tony suggests Hare and Tortoise which I’m not hugely keen on (and his rules translation is very dodgy) or Princes of Florence, which I love but I know Bekki will hate – far too calculational and too much downtime.

So I suggest Puerto Rico, and then start unpacking it to seal the deal. We replace Large Market, Large Warehouse and University with Trading Post,

We are seated as follows: Colin, Bekki, Fee, Tony, Simon.

The game begins relatively normally, Colin picking Settler (I get Sugar) and then Bekki builds (I take a small sugar mill). Nobody takes a Small Market straight off – in fact nobody takes one at all for a long time, which was part of a trend that continued throughout the game.

There was less building during this game than I’ve ever seen in a five player. Normally towards the end of the game there is very little worthwile to buy any more. I think this time there was still a Harbour AND a Wharf left at the end of the game (or they were bought just before the end), as well as one of the 10 cost buildings.

Part of the reason for this seems to be that nobody is very keen to take Quarries or produce trade goods. I’m the only player to make any coffee all game!

As well as the obvious trading benefit this gives me, I also sacrifice one trading opportunity to ship my only coffee onto the largest boat. This completely blocks that boat for the rest of the game (I’m only making one coffee per craft and it ends the game with four coffee onboard), denying the others many shipping points. (We actually still end by running out of shipping points, but reducing the rate let me build much more than would have been possible otherwise).

I get a decent factory going (everything except Indigo, though its often less due to shortage of goods), and am able to buy and man both Guild Hall and City Hall before the game ends (we run out of shipping points).

I finish a couple of points ahead of Tony who had no large buildings, but plenty of corn combined with Harbor and Wharf gave him lots of shipping points.

Fee also has quite a few shipping points, but she had one of those games where she was just short of enough money to buy a large building (9 doubloons on the penultimate turn, that always annoys) and finishes third.

Bekki managed to buy a large building but had trouble shipping her sugar and indigo and finished fourth.

Colin had an okay position I though at one point, but finished last. I think he made the mistake of getting quarries but not having any coffee or tobacco to sell, so he didn’t get to actually use his quarries very much.

Marleena arrived during the game of PR (and made some very nice cups of tea for everyone), so afterwards we had about an hour and a half for a six player game. That’s too short for Elfenland, and I didn’t bring Alhambra for once. Still didn’t want to play Hare & Tortoise, but I had Citadels with me. It’s like Ohne Furcht und Adel but you can read the cards! (which vastly improves the experience, Bekki seemed to agree).

We didn’t try any of the alternative characters or buildings. I think I’ll have to make some character summary cards before we use the characters (it’s the one useful component the English version is missing).

Marleena had a strong start, getting some good income from being the Merchant and the King. She was the King for like three rounds in a row, and as I was sitting to her right that means I get to pick from just two characters each time, which isn’t great. But I got Warlord three times in a row, and had a red Building, so it wasn’t too bad.

Then Marleena got assassinated and soon after Fee had a strong turn where she built three one cost buildings with the Architect, and was then able to be the Bishop (who can’t be targeted by the Warlord) next turn, and got to eight buildings the turn after, again making her immune to the Warlord. She finished first.

Marleena was second and I think I finished third. I only built five buildings, but they were one of each colour for the three point bonus, and included the 8 point Dragons Gate.

I’m not sure what order Colin, Tony and Bekki finished in. I think they had problems with getting robbed and stabbed.

Pub Quiz next week. We are the reigning champions (more 30 point bonus rounds on stuff I know probably required for us to win again).

Sunday 18/02/07 : San Juan, Tigris & Euphrates (Princes of Florence)

For the second week running it’s just Tony, Fee and me. Last week we were able to play Princes of Florence. It’s not at it’s best with three, but seeing as I hadn’t played it for over a year I wasn’t going to say no!

Tony won Princes by a couple of points: he bought mostly Jesters and Recruitments at auction, and bought several extra profession cards. I bought mostly Builders and Prestige cards. In the end Tony’s late game large works gave him a 2 point victory over me. My 19 points of prestige cards (least empty spaces, most buildings, two large buildings) weren’t quite enough.

I wasted a couple of early actions I think, so much so that I only actually completed two works. Early on I should have just concentrated on scoring the works I had, rather than buying stuff to try and make them better. I had forgotten how hard it is to hit the late game work requirements when you don’t have any jesters.

Fee was competing with Tony for the Jesters and Recruitments, but unlike Tony she was playing her works early (indeed after the fourth turn she had no profession cards in hand). This wins her a few early best work bonuses, but generally you don’t get as many points playing that way. At least by competing with Tony she was making their money management tricky, thus boosting my chances.

As neither of them had much interest in competing with me for Builders or Prestige cards my money management was relatively simple. I think both my works were for points (maybe with an odd hundred florins), and I still had a little left at the end.

Princes of Florence is a great game. I must try to play it more this year.

This week both Tony and I have brought Tigris and Euphrates, another classic game that we don’t play anywhere near enough.

Still Tony doesn’t want to jump straight into such a hard game (probably a wise move) so we start with a quick hand of San Juan. Tony and I are pretty strongly violet (he is convinced it is the best plan), whilst Fiona is building many production buildings. She gets a Guild Hall and a Palace, but it’s not enough to beat my City Hall plus Palace.

The main difference being that I had a Quarry whilst she didn’t have a Smithy, and I was able to get down a couple of one cost violets for ‘free’ (I know they’re not literally free unless you have Carpenter as well). The Guild Hall players should really be looking to close the game out with 12 builds, but Fiona’s income wasn’t as good ( a function of being the only player heavily invested in production), so she only finished with 10 builds.

After this game Tony starts explaining how the violet plan is so much better than Guild Halls, and that the game is therefore slightly broken. I try to convince him otherwise, but despite the fact that I have played the game about ten times more than him, he apparently knows more than I do. That’s annoys me.

After San Juan we unpack T&E, and Tony reminds Fee of the rules whilst I take a loo break. He does his usual effective job. I get back just in time to repeat some of his gibberish regarding the scoring of external conflicts into actual English.

The game gets underway with me giving Fee a few basic strategy tips (Green and Black leaders are the most obvious to play early, remember to support your leaders with Temples etc). I have a glut of opening Green tiles so I start my own kingdom in the bottom right of the board. The plan was to make a monument, but it turned out to not be necessary.

I also have my Black leader in this kingdom, and join with the lower central treasure. At this point this kingdom is quite close to an external confict with Fee’s central kingdom, and I still have a glut of Green and Black tiles in hand. So I deliberately keep my kingdom a little weaker than hers, until she attacks, and I have enough for the tie in black to win that conflict. That ends the external conflict and breaks up her kingdom, so that soon my Green leader boots hers off as well.

That basically gives me enough Green and Black points for the game. I pick up some Blue and Red points throughout the game, and as my Green leader never gets displaced I get 5 of the 8 treasures collected for quite a confortable win (my score is 8/9/9/12)

Fee got most her leaders booted off midway throughout the game, but just re-entered her black leader in the empty bottom left corner and spent several turns getting a couple of cubes per turn in the colours she was weakest. And she also picked up a treasure relatively simply in the top right hand corner to end the game (I wanted the game to end, so I was helping).

Tony has a couple of strong colours, but is very weak in black and another colour (green?) and finishes last. He complains that he got dreadful draws (which might be true, he did change a load of tiles a couple of times), but I think he overstates his bad luck. In particular I think he got loads of reds but didn’t make the best use of them. He may have forgotten that you can remove leaders from the board (at one stage he had a four temple leader in red – I think he could have removed it, tried to kick off my green or black leader with an internal conflict then completed a B/G temple).

After T&E there’s time for one more quick game, something a bit longer than filler, but not too long. Whilst some groups can play Puerto Rico in 45 minutes we’re not one of them, so it’s San Juan again.

I want to try and win with a Guild Hall strategy this time, but after building an early Prefecture my counselling attempts aren’t helpful (though I do build Silver), and quickly Tony, and then Fiona have Prefectures as well.

This game is a little odd. Everybody builds a mixture of violet and production and eventually Tony and Fiona find the Guild Halls. But because they aren’t huge Halls the scores aren’t that high, and I’m keeping pace just with a couple of Monuments (I also have Library & Silver). I close with a Triumphal Arch, but lose by one card on the tiebreaker to Tony.

Sunday 04/02/2007: Pub Quiz, Super Bowl XLI

As it was the first Sunday of the month, it was the pub quiz at The Prince of Wales. We had a larger team than usual: Fee, Marleena & Luke, Jim, Colin, and me.

Normally in quizzes the bigger the team the better, and you want people to know about different stuff, so as to have a chance on all the questions. Colin, in his first pub quiz appearance, definitely added some new areas of knowledge to the team (for example Dr Who’s home planet is Gallifrey).

The first round is fairly easy, and we get 17 (each round is 20 questions).

The second round is slightly harder and we get 13, leaving us in fifth place on 30 points (there are nine teams)

After a strong third round (16), we had moved up to fourth on 46 points. First place is on 51 – they’ve been in the lead ever since the first round when they got 19.

Each month there is also a bonus round that is handed out at the beginning. This month it is a sheet of thirty ‘thumbnail’ size pictures of famous people (mostly actors, a few music and sport).

To me this kind of thing is very simple. 28 (!) of them are obvious, there’s just two that I spent most of the evening thinking about.

No 29 is a woman wearing pink with untidy mousey blonde hair. She’s singing. Eventually I realise that it’s Suzi Quattro.

No 21 is a young looking woman wearing a yellow rain mac. I have a couple of unlikely ideas (who seem too obscure, based on the other people), and then I decide it’s a young Jane Fonda. Colin isn’t so sure.

Reading out the answers, I have all the first 20 correct. No big surprise. No 21… is Jane Fonda. Yes! Numbers 22 through 28 are correct, and I’m pretty confident Suzi Quattro is correct. It is! Now I think I’ve got all thirty in the bag, but can’t avoid the nagging feeling that maybe I’ve made a hideous mistake somewhere…. No, I got 30!

This gets me a big cheer from everyone on the team, and many congratulations are sent my way.

The final scores are announced in reverse order. With the 30 points from the bonus round we have 76, and when fourth place is reached with a score of under 70 points it is apparent most teams didn’t do quite as well on the bonus round as we did…

Sure enough, the team that had been leading throughout finish second with 74, and we have won. This is only the second time ever (the first was a couple of years back, before I was on the team).

After the quiz, it’s home to watch the Super Bowl. Historically I’ve always been an AFC fan (I first become a fan of American Football during the NFC’s winning streak in the 80s), and Tony Dungy deserves a Super Bowl, so I’m supporting the Colts.

After the opening kickoff is returned for a Chicago TD, the first quarter is strewn with errors. In the pouring rain that’s not completely surprising.

As well as the many turnovers during the first half the Chicago secondary completely blows the coverage for a 55yd touchdown. Still, by this stage the Bears had already scored a second touchdown, from a decent drive that included a 50+ yard run, and it looks like they might make a game of it.

Sadly it’s not to be. The Indy offence is totally dominating the Chicago defense with a short passing game, and having established the pass, they are also able to run with some success. The only thing that keeps the game close is the Colts inability to convert all of their yardage into points. Several times they get into good positions but have to settle for field goal attempts. Vinatieri misses a 36 yarder (!), another is fumbled by the holder, so they enter half time only 16-14 ahead.

At half time I cook Burgers for Lucy and me, so I’ve no idea if Prince was any good.

During a third quarter in which they again dominate possession they extend the lead to 22-17. By this stage they have completely dominated in terms of both possession time and yardage, but it’s still only a one score game!

The thing is the Bears don’t look like scoring even once. In the fourth quarter Grossman has a long pass intercepted, it’s returned for a Touchdown, and that’s basically game.

Eli Manning gets MVP, which was always a dead cert. I was really impressed by Rhodes and Addai, the two Colt running backs, who both had over 100 total yards. And so that's it for another postseason (I don't have Sky Sports so I only watch Football during January).

EVERY SINGLE BOOK I OWN!!!

This is currently a work in progress!
Created - 05/02/2007
Edited 05/03/2007 (added Science / Tech)

Sci-Fi / Fantasy

Isaac Asimov

The Early Years Vol 1

The Early Years Vol 2

The Early Years Vol 3

Buy Jupiter

Nightfall

The Bicentennial Man

The End of Eternity

The Currents of Space

Earth is Room Enough

The Winds of Change

The Positronic Man (with Robert Silverberg)

Nightfall (with Robert Silverberg)

I, Robot

Robot Visions

The Caves of Steel

The Robots of Dawn

Foundation

Second Foundation

Foundation and Empire

Foundations's Edge

Foundation and Earth

Forward the Foundation

Douglas Adams

The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Life, the Universe and Everything

So Long, and Thanks for all Fish

Mostly Harmless

Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (by Neil Gaiman)

Clive Barker

Weaveworld

The Great and Secret Show

Imajica

Greg Bear

Blood Music

The Infinity Concerto

Queens of Angels

Slant

Moving Mars

Eon

Eternity

Darwin's Children

David Brin

Glory Season

Earth

Sundiver

Startide Rising

The Uplift War

Brightness Reef

Infinity's Shore

Heaven's Reach

Kil'n People

Arthur C Clarke

Imperial Earth

Of Time and Stars

Rendevous with Rama

Rama II (with Gentry Lee)

Garden of Rama (with Gentry Lee)

Rama Revealed (with Gentry Lee)

Greg Egan

Quarantine

Permutation City

Axiomatic

Luminous

Diaspora

Terenesia

Schild's Ladder

Jon Courtney Grimwood - Pashazade
Peter F Hamilton

The Reality Dysfuntion

The Neutron Alchemist

The Naked God

Fallen Dragon

Pandora's Star

Judas Unchained

Frank Herbert - Dune
Robin Hobb

Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin's Quest

Ship of Magic

The Mad Ship

Ship of Destiny

Fool's Errand

Golden Fool

Fool's Fate

Shaman's Crossing

Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon
George R R Martin

A Game of Thrones

A Clash of Kings

Richard Morgan

Altered Carbon

Broken Angels

Market Forces

Woken Furies

Alastair Reynolds

Revelation Space

Chasm City

Redemption Ark

Absolution Gap

Century Rain

Galactic North

Kim Stanley Robinson

Icehenge

The Wild Shore

Red Mars

Green Mars

Blue Mars

The Martians

Antartica

The Years of Rice and Salt

J R R Tolkien

The Hobbit

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

The Return of the King

The Silmarillion

Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Dragons of Autumn Twilight

Dragons of Winter Night

Dragons of Spring Dawning

Dragons of Summer Flame

Time of The Twins

War of the Twins

Test of the Twins

Tad Williams

The Dragonbone Chair

Stone of Farewell

To Green Angel Tower: Siege

To Green Angel Tower: Storm

Otherland: City of Golden Shadows

Otherland: River of Blue Fire

Otherland: Mountain of Black Glass

Otherland: Sea of Silver Light

The War of the Flowers

Shadowmarch

Other Fiction

Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin
Jane Austen - Emma
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility
Iain Banks - The Crow Road
Pat Barker - Regeneration
Pat Barker - The Eye in the Door
Pat Barker - The Ghost Road
Julian Barnes - Arthur & George
Louis De Bernieres - Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Umboerto Eco - The Name of The Rose
Umboerto Eco - Foucault's Pendulum
EM Forster - A Passage to India
Charles Frazier - Cold Mountain
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Jospeh Heller - Catch 22
Joseph Heller - God Knows
Joseph Heller - Closing Time
Nick Hornby - Fever Pitch
Nick Hornby - High Fidelity
Nick Hornby - About A Boy
Jack Kerouac - On The Road
TE Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Ursula Le Guin - Always Coming Home
David Mitchell - Cloud Altlas
William Nicholson - The Wind on Fire

Science / Technology

Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins - The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins - Climbing Mount Improbable
Richard Dawkins - The Ancestors Tale
Richard P Feynman - QED: The strange theory of light and matter
Richard P Feynman - The Character of Physical Law
Richard P Feynman - "Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman!"
Richard P Feynman - "What do you care what other people think?"
Richard P Feynman - Don't you have time to think?
James Gleick - Genius: Richard Feynman and modern physics
James Gleick - Chaos
John Gribbin - Science: A History 1543-2001
Brian Greene - The Elegant Universe
Stephen W Hawking - A Brief History of Time
Douglas R Hofstader - Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Brian Penrose - The Emperor's New Mind
Brian Penrose - The Road to Reality
Steven Pinger - How The Mind Works
Karl Sigmund - Games of Life
Bruce Sterling - The Hacker Crackdown
Clifford Stoll - The Cuckoo's Egg