Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 19^th February, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale.  As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer.

This week the “Feature Game” will be Celestia (a remake of Cloud 9), players take on the roles of adventurers exploring the cities of Celestia by airship.  At the beginning of each round, the captain rolls the dice to discover the challenges he will face.  Before he does so, however, each player must decide whether to stay on board, or leave and forfeit the potential riches to come.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

And speaking of airships…

An airship was carrying passengers from all over the world. Suddenly everybody heard a noise and the airship began to lose height. The stewardess approaches the passenger closest to her, a Frenchman, and said, “There is a hole in the airship and we are losing height. Please jump out, sir, the airship will be less heavy and you will save a lot of people.”

The Frenchman thought it over, looked at his beautiful wife and decided to do the honourable thing: he knocked back a whole bottle of wine and shouting, “Vive la France!” jumped over the side.

Unfortunately, it didn’t help; the airship was still losing height, now even more rapidly than before. So the stewardess went to the next passenger, a Scandinavian and said, “Please, sir, the airship is falling from the sky and we will all die, unless you jump out of the airship.”

The Scandinavian thought it over, looked at his young family and felt he had no choice. He took a deep breath, knocked back a bottle of aquavit, then shouted “Vikings rule the world!” and jumped.

Sadly, the airship was still falling out of the sky. And so, the stewardess went to the next passenger, a Scotsman and explained the situation, “There is a hole in the airship, we are going to crash, please sir, if you jump out of the airship and save everyone.”

“Ach, no way, lady!” the Scot replied.

“Please, sir, I beg you,” the stewardess pleaded, “If you jump you will will be a hero!”

The Scotsman looked over the side at the rapidly approaching ground and thought it over quickly. With just a slight hesitation, he knocked back all remaining alcohol, then shouted “Long live St George” and threw the Englishman next to him over the side…