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