Beardgamage - The Resumption

4th February 2017

First in the all new, actually getting updated series, beardgamage - The Resumption will be commencing on February 4th in deepest, darkest Perthshire.

Be there, be square.

##update##update##woohooanupdate##

The menu for The Resumption is, as yet, undefined. There are very few games in my personal stash or the wider colectomy that does not accommodate 3 players to some degree. Likely candidates from my stash (and the only one I can remember the name of in the wider colectomy) are:

   - Galaxy Trucker
   - Dead of Winter
   - Lords of Vegas
   - Suburbia
   - Village
   - Inis (just arrived and causing much excitement in my house)
   - Terra Mystica  (an even newer arrival with almost as much excitement invoked as Inis, but with Agricola levels of wood)

Also quite a few appetisers kicking about:

   - The Grizzled
   - Sushi Go
   - The Beasty Bar

There is also the competitive tower defence thing I have no recollection of the name of in the wider colectomy.

Spoilt for choice methinks.

Beardgamage - Vomiting & Rear End Running Edition

Hey.

If it wasn't apparent from the previous post or two, the post East Beaster stuff is being done retrospectively. This is bad for three reasons:

• it is incredibly tardy of me leaving updates so long
• certain onomatopoeic photographers spend time getting photos and then I don't use them
• 2.5 months later it is hard to remember specifics

In addition to the above,  I haven't spent the time to revise the particularly ropey titles for the events into something better than the above.

From memory the above commemorates the outbreak of some stomach virus at the Glasgow Commonwealth games.

I am sure it was funny on the way home in July. Oh just take my word for it.

On to games, photos of games and vague recollections of games.

This all went down on the 19th July 2014.

The Players:

- Kev
- Col
- Der Baumhunt
- Gordo
- occasional Deedly

A starts was made with HEY! That's My Fish... a game of cutthroat fish acquisition which is surprisingly brutal, especially two player. The still below doesn't quite convey the bitter swish of the hand and the vindictive penguin impersonation being done... if only there was some way that pictures could move and you could hear the sound.

 As is obvious from the pic, Yellow is about to do a thing which will scupper Blue and it's evil scheme.

 FYI - blue was evil in this case and didn't deserve to win. I have no idea if it did or not, but evil has a bad habit of doing so and, coupled with the fact that I was Yellow and seem incapable of winning at these things, Blue probably triumphed on the fish count.


 As HEY!... is a quick game, there were a number of rounds played whilst waiting for everyone. Once everyone had arrived we ploughed into a nice big assed bowl of...

BIBLICAL CHILLI

How to make biblical chilli in 5 easy steps:

1. Buy chilli ingredients, ensuring that you include both beef and pork in a roughly 2:1 ratio.

2. Prepare the ingredients according to your preferred chilli recipe. Make sure you have cumin in the mix too.

3. Leave it on the hob for frikkin' ages to cook through and let flavour flood out and all that. Seriously, a good 2-3 hours and longer if you can manage. Just remember, low heat now and stir it every now and then.

4. Throughout all of the above, you MUST be listening to The Holy Bible by the Manic Street Preachers. Youtube link below,although I strongly recommend buying it as it is at least as tasty as the chilli:

 How to get the biblical into your chilli

5. The next day, eat it.

Bellies full of chilli, we decided to combine classic co-operative action with revenge for the failure at The Easter Beaster and take on the behemoth that is...

Pandemic - Scourge of Chilli Eating Co-op gamers

 I recall some facts through the haze of a chilli induced snooziness and the rancid odour of defeat that we came very, VERY close to saving the world this time. We were again denied and the WHOLE WORLD was decimated by small plastic cubes of various colours.

Bastard viruses. Or bacteria. Probably both and a fungus or two as well.

After that failure we decided to push the limits of a couple of games that work better with more than 4 players, so Deedly was co-opted in for some hidden role backstabby/party card funtimes. We played two games, the first was:


Saboteur

Saboteur

A frankly cracking wee game of mining and treachery. I had played it previously with about 8 or 9 people and it works better with those numbers, but it just about cut it with 5 of us.

Nifty little game which I'll be looking to play more on those occasions where I can muster the numbers.

Masquerade

Masquerade

Just to re-iterate than none of us have a clue what we are doing with this boardgame malarkey, we had a game of Masquerade.

True to form, we didn't look at the pretty pictures, but rather failed to remember what they were and who the hell we had.

I honestly have no idea who won.

The game really needs more than 5 though. I had played this previously where there were 8/9 of us and a good few drinks and it was much more enjoyable.

Still a good end to a chilli fuelled (and barely remembered) day.

G.

Beardgamage - The Beard With No Game (or much else)

Sadly, the mysteries of the goings on in June are lost in the mists of time.

Who came?

What was played?

Was anything eaten?

Do dice that don't get rolled always show sixes?

Who knows...

As this will look a bit dull without anything pics to show, and I did declare when I started this blog that it would JUST be about games... so a cool picture of Monty, a very groovy dog I used to have... for no reason.

Woah.. that's big.

Oh, and a link to a rather good tune on the ol' tube:

Breeding. Dealing and Safari Time


G.

Belated Beardy Reportage on The Easter Beaster

Date: 5th April

Venue: The Maddiston/Rumford Borderlands

Participants:
- Giggles
- Liggles
- Ciggles 
- Kiggles
- Miggles

Itinerary:

- King of Tokyo

- Posh Sausages

- Proper Sausages

- Grass

- Pandemic(s)

- Poo

Sadly, due to time lapse, the detail of the events are a little hazy for me. Please feel free to add any corrections and/or additional detail in the comments/replies.

 King of Tokyo

King Liggles - The Dominator

Another titanic battle amongst overgrown monstrosities.

The contest came to an end with Liggles clambering onto a pile of dead and dying beasts whilst roaring mighty victory at the back of the fleeing Giggles.

Liggles 1
Everyone Else 0


Grass
After the brutal pounding, we decided to chill a little and have a nice, competitive game of Grass. Kiggles's old school card game which recreates the nice, fluffy business of the Mary Jane trade.

The psychotic levels of competition that King of Tokyo instilled carried over into this game. This had such an impact on the game we had to change the win conditions so that it would actually end after a good hour!

The most winny (or should that be least losey?) was, once again, Liggles.

Liggles 2
Everyone Else 0

Events with Sausages

Pandemic
After all the cutthroat rivalry, the pork in our bellies worked on our collective mood to push us all towards a nice, friendly cooperative game of Pandemic. Good news for fraternal spirit, BAD news for the world.

Our first try to save the world resulted in... the unrestricted spread of various diseases through the world. The huge resources flung at the battle against the likes of pig flue, SARS and, most terrifyingly of all, Mississippi Backbone Terror, resulted in massive national debt. The high level of casualties did, at the same time, destroy the tax base for these countries. Soon society was falling apart and nation states collapsed, with humanity returning to a new dark age.

Not good.

We tried again and managed to... delay the apparently inevitable for a bit longer. Please see above for the end outcome.

What not winning looks like.

Not good either.

Then we tried again and... yes. We failed again. Grr.

REALLY BAD!

Liggles 2

Mississippi Backbone Terror 1

Everyone Else 0

Poo!
I nice bit of flinging primate poop at each other. Tops!!

The crap catapulting whittled us down until Miggles and Kiggles were locked in a two primate in doody duel between each other. This went down to the wire, with some ebb and flow, but in the end Miggles managed to drown Kiggles in a pile of excrement.

Liggles 2
Miggles 1
Mississippi Backbone Terror 1
Everyone Else 0

So in summation... the host LOST EVERYTHING AGAIN!! Suf-ucki-n-prize

Beardgamage - The Easter Beaster a.k.a. International Tabletop Day

The next day of boardgame based host bashing is due to take place on 5th April. Not only is this the last Beardgamage before Easter, but it also coincides with International Tabletop Day. I have had issues with the naming of this one, too many had a blasphemous flavour and were more construed/obscure than usual. So any suggestions are welcome on a postcard to beardgamage@gmail.com.

I am expecting a record number of beardgamers for this one... a mighty 5 confirmed, with a possible 6 or 7 depending on better halves and always invited but never make it types. So in interest of maximising the fun, I was thinking we should focus on games that support five, games that most or all of us have played before and games that if we havent all played, are simple enough to get up and running quickly/short enough to replay a couple of times.

Current candidates are:

Ticket to Ride
Libertalia (b.y.o. painkillers of choice)
King of Tokyo
Citadels
Gloom
Poo
Archipelago
Cosmic Encounter (this one is a bit of a curveball)
Dixit
Zombie Dice
Dobble
Castle Panic (co-op... might be a struggle for our Bathgate delegate)
Pandemic (co-op... ditto)
Tales of Arabian Nights (Random storytime)

I'll set up a poll for y'all to peruse and pick your top titles with a view to getting a plan of action, but we can always go off piste on the day. Please feel free to suggest/bring along any others you might fancy (except, you know, monopoly and cluedo etc).

As it is a special international day to play games, I'm not going to make any restrictions on turning up/going away times. Feel free to pitch up as early as you like - I tend to get up about 5/5:30 these days - and stay as late as you like. Any/all are welcome to stay into the wee small hours on Saturday/Sunday. Beds will be provided for anyone who tires of beating me but doesn't quite want to go home yet.

Please feel free to bring any nibbles, but there is a massive surplus of unopened biscuits from last time and that must be punished/eaten before any more biscuits are allowed into the house.

Regarding proper food... if things look like they'll be going on into the evening, I'll probably just look at getting a big ol' pizza from the local pizzaria at dinnertime and we can keep fed up on snacks and maybe a cheeky sausage roll or somet.

Beardgamage - Pwnkcake Day

Date: 15th March 2014
Venue: Deepest, Darkest Polmont
Participants:
- Goggsy
- Lorenziboom
- C Dawg
- Deedly Dee
Itinerary:
- Moats
- Citadels
- Innuendos
- More Citadels
- Chilli
- Ticket to Ride
- Even more Citadels, with bonus innudendo

My drains decided to back up onto the drive and give me the unexpected excitement of having a moat. At the time I thought it was just water, but the next day I found it to be a bit more sinister. Regardless, everyone managed to get across it for a bit of beardgaming.

Citadels had won the 'play me first poll' with a 100% backing from all voters. So... it was played first.

Citadels - 2 Player
Quick 2 player Citadels between Googs and Lorenziboom whilst waiting for C Dawg. It was a fairly close fought game until Goggs pulled a magician hand swap with Lorenziboom and got a startingly poor hand (a 6 point card, 2 duplicates of existing districts and a pair of cheap cards... woot). The Boom then played an almost perfect couple of rounds to absolutely trounce me.

Lorenziboom 1
Goggsy 0
(Kev didn't win)

Citadels - 3 Player - Round 1
With the arrival of C Dawg, a 3 person game of Citadels was quickly embarked on. I have a theory that people tend to win their first game of Citadels due to the help they receive to learn the game, but not this time. Lorenziboom triumphed again, with C Dawg then Goggsy trailing behind.

Lorenziboom 2
C Dawg 0
Goggsy 0
(Kev didn't win)

Citadels - 3 Player - Round 2
Whilst I whipped up a round of tea and stirred the ol' chilli - C Dawg and Lorenziboom decided we should have another pop at Citadels, now we all knew what we were doing (losing in my case)! So we fired right in. It was around this time that C Dawg started talking about some emergency rule that is invoked to let him win, regardless of the score/standings at the end of the game. We obviously ignored this and ploughed on with the game... Lorenziboom surged ahead whilst C Dawg and myself plodded about empty districts fantasising about what might be. All of a sudden Lorenziboom had 8 districts and we started couting up the dots to establish how much he had won by.

Amazingly, once all the dots were counted and all the bonuses added, C Dawg and Lorenziboom were neck and neck... a quick consultation of the manual to establish how to resolve ties revealed that C Dawg had the upper hand and, against all expectations, had managed to pip the boom at the post!

Lorenziboom 2
C Dawg 1
Goggsy 0
(Kev didn't win this either)

Chilli

We all consumed chilli and convinced Deedly to play the next game with us. That game was...

Ticket to Ride: Europe

Choo Choo

This 'main course' was embarked upon with great gusto, Deedly and Lorenziboom vying fdor the longest train and Lorenziboom was goaded into going for the big transscandinavian tunnel - and he only bloody well pulled it off! Deedly eventually got the longest route, but Lorenziboom's mastery of the tickets (getting all of his, including the 'long' one) meant he triumphed. Deedly not too far behind with myself and C Dawg scratching around miserably in the railyards of failure.

Rokkin.

Lorenziboom 3
C Dawg 1
Goggsy 0
Deedly 0
(Kev didn't place, but he's still ranking better than I was)

Citadels - 4 Player
A cake was produced, along with lashings of tea, to get us through a 4 player Citadels. I figured if they were all hopped up on sugar and dashing to the loo and back all the time I might stand a chance of winning. Once we all got to grips with the slightly different role picking mechanics, the usual backstabbing began.

It floated around fairly evenly for a while until C Dawg revealed he had a hot date with some alien babe in Glasgow and we picked up the pace. Through some utterly cunning play I managed to get all 8 districts down and we embarked on the count...

... Dee came in a respectable last, just a couple of points behind the pack. Lorenziboom fell one point short of C Dawg and Goggsy who were... tied!! But it'll be ok... I was confident I'd still win, after all I had all 8 districts and C dawg only had a cou... Wait! No!

ARGHHHH!

The filthy swine only went and had more points on his districts! He bloody well won on another tiebreak!!

Lorenziboom 3
C Dawg 2
Goggsy 0
Deedly 0
(Kev didn't win, but hey, he didn't lose either. I may look at not making it in an attempt to improve my record)

Having surveyed the day's events, I have come to the conclusion that the emergency rule C Dawg start muttering about is actually:

Rule 6B - If you are the C Dawg, you will win Citadels on tiebreaks, regardless of all else.

Might have to house rule that one

Yuletide Rules - As It Happened

Date: 1st February 2014
Venue: Roond Mah Bit
Participants:
- GC - 'I think you'll find I DID tell you about those victory points.'
- KM - '...they were just misunderstood.'
- LT - 'Wood, I'll have more wood.'
-CG - 'F**k cooperation, I'll have the money.'
Itinerary:
- Smash Up
- King of Tokyo
- Archipelago
- regular food drops

There was some sly pre-beardgamage involving an absolute victory for some allies in Memoir '44 (grats LT) and an epic bout of Netrunner. The Netrunner could have gone either way, but after much thrusting, parrying and riposting(?) the Jinteki Corp eventually triumphed by executing enough of its dastardly agendas... (yay me). Anyway... on to the main event. Yuletide Rules... even in February!

Game 1 - Smash Up!
CG wasn't going to make it until after lunch as he was busy gathering money from 'The Man'. The heartless acquisition of cold, hard cash is a common theme for CG.. but more of that later.

Smash Up! was a first time played for all of us, except for a very limited attempt about 7 months ago with a very tired better half. To speed us through the game, the excellent Tabletop play through of Smash Up! was viewed the previous night. Cards were divvied out and the decks ended with:

GC - Piratical Zombies
KM - Robotic Aliens
LT - Ninja Wizards

Much backward and forward with this, as anyone who has played shouldn't be surprised about. The Ninjzards kept sweeping in and grasping points as bases were scoring, much to to horror of the Rolians and Pimbies. Bloody magic stealth fiends. The game boiled down to a couple of tense base scores with the Zombates going for it to try to deny the others the win and get themselves back into the running... failed epically and the Albots swooped in and abducted victory from the Wizjas. And probably took it into lower orbit and probed it.

They're sick that way. Or maybe that's just KM.

 Game 2 -  King of Tokyo
 The arrival of CG brought an end to KM's victory whoops, a fresh round of hot beverages and the set up of King of Tokyo.

King of Tokyo was the game that kicked off Beardgamage back in The Oktoberfest. The success of it then prompted the purchase of the little expansion Power Up! which adds a Panda and monster specific powers. Today was the first play with the powers.

Failure to adequately explain things to CG did not prevent us from diving in headlong to a good ol' pagger for the rights to pillage the city. Initially there was a reluctance to enter the city, with everyone holding back to gather points and power cubes (or 'juice' in beardgame parlance). Eventually GC and CG started trading position in the city as falling back on points led them to try and catch up. LT surged ahead on points only to be cast down by a swedgy right claw from GC's Kraken. The same round saw CG flattened leaving just KM and GC to batter it out whilst the dead dined on the burgers that had just been served up.

The ongoing failure of GC and KM to actually finish the fight suggested the mighty blows being exchanged were probably a bit more of a floppy play fight nature than any jungle rumble. Eventually, after a little confusion that there may have been a draw with a simultaneous KO - it became apparent that KM's bony hide blocked one damage and he there fore stood victorious, once again, on the city strewn corpses of his fellow monsters.

No aliens this time, but I am sure he did bad things to victory again.

Game 3 -  Archipelago
Burgers devoured we plunged headfirst into some hardcore worker placement of an, apparently, semi-cooperative nature. We all hopped on our little wooden ships (shipples? sheeples?slooples?) and set forth in search of a tropical paradise to plunder... I mean bring the benefits of civilisation to...

The first turn was a bit slow as we started to grapple with the rules. There are alot of options with all the worker placement and everything. Even with my trial play through, there was still alot of rules exposition. This pain was lightened by many, many references to the acquisition of wood, in best Catan style. Not bad since only one of us has actually played Catan.

Anyway. After much taxation, gathering of wood and failure to stave off dissent amongst the islanders by providing them with fish we managed to muster together the start of a colony. This was followed by repeated failures in exploration, more taxation (CG and his money fixation kicking in) and more gathering of wood to the point that the natives were on the cusp of revolt when KM's noticed that his endgame conditions had been met and we averted complete failure.

A quick tally revealed that GC had managed to accumulate the most Victory Points through an inability to expend resources and sheer luck.

Victory briefly flirted with GC before eloping with KM as he sashayed out of the front door.

Overall result for the day... KM, despite all claims of uselessness, towered over the rest of us lowly beardgamers.