Author Archives: nannyGOAT

Boardgames in the News: The Effects of Covid-19 Continue into 2022

The global pandemic has had a huge impact on every area of life, including gaming. Although a lot game groups have been forced to move their activities online or even close and manufacturers have struggled, there was also a reported increase in games sales (including games as diverse as Monopoly, Dobble and Warhammer) as families searched for activities to keep them amused while stuck at home. Many games conventions were cancelled or moved online in 2020 and were reduced in size with restrictions put in place for 2021.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was hoped that 2022 would bring the end of such things, however, it has recently been announced that both the New York Toy Fair and Spielwarenmesse (aka the Neuremburg Toy Fair) have been cancelled. The company that runs Spielwarenmesse also now also run the International Spieltage, SPIEL (at Essen), but it is not yet clear what effect this will have on that if any.

Next Meeting, 13th January 2022

We are still meeting on Thursdays for the time being, so, our next meeting will be on THURSDAY 13^th January 2022. We will start playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer (table is booked from 6.30pm for those who would like to eat first).

This week, the “Feature Game” will be Streets. This is a tile laying game by the same people as Villagers. It is, perhaps, a little lighter and, rather than developing the occupants of a village, players are building a city, transforming it street by street, from a small town into a centre of culture and commerce.

– Image by boardGOATS

And speaking of city folk and villagers…

Jeff, a city boy taking a break in the country was staying on a farm. The weather was lovely and he was taking a gentle stroll round the farmyard when he saw the farmer in a barn and went in for a bit of a chat.

Looking for an in, he asked the farmer, “Excuse me, why does that cow have no horns?”

“Well sir,” the farmer began, “There’s many reasons why some cows don’t have horns. Some breeds don’t have horns; Angus cows don’t have them for example.”

The farmer continued, “In some breeds and in some individuals, the horns may grow towards the head, eventually causing injury, so we remove them with as little pain as possible. And in some cases we don’t want them to grow horns, so when they are calves, we can put a little acid where the horns would grow, the buds, and then they never grow horns.”

“I see,” said Jeff.

The farmer, paused and then finished, “The reason why THAT cow doesn’t have horns though, is because THAT cow is a horse!”

30th December 2021

It was a quiet night, but nonetheless very enjoyable. Blue and Pink were just finishing their dinner when Lime arrived, and after some chit-chat, they were joined by Pine. In previous years, we’ve held a New Year Party where we play the gorgeous puck-flicking, racing game, PitchCar, so in the absence of this, the “Feature Game” was another classic car racing game, Downforce.

– Adapted from image by BGG contributor kalchio

We played this at New Year last year, but that was remotely (through Board Game Arena). The online rendering of the game is really very good with lots of brilliant sweary graphics when a driver finds their way blocked and we all enjoyed playing it. Although playing online is infinitely better than not playing at all, it is a poor substitute for the real thing. So, Pink in particular, was really looking forward to giving an outing to his brand-spanking new Christmas copy, courtesy of the Board Game Geek Secret Santa (great choice Santa—thanks!).

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Game play is quite simple, but also very clever. Players have a hand of cards and on their turn play one and move the cars shown. The game begins with a car auction, so the card may show their own car, but more than likely shows several and may or may not include their own. Starting with the fastest card (the one at the top) players then move the cars one at a time. The player with the winning car wins money, but players also have three opportunities to bet during the race. The player with the most money at the end of the game is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

There are a lot of variants and “House Rules” for Downforce, including substituting the auction for random (secret) draw, changing or omitting the betting, and including special power cards (either drawn at random or included in the car auction). There are also several maps available, two in the base game and two in each of the Danger Circuit and Wild Ride expansions (which also have special rules). This time we played essentially with the “Rules as Written”, and included the special power cards (auctioned with the cars at the start) and began with the River Station track from the base game.

– Image by boardGOATS

The first hurdle was everyone trying to think up a name for their team—there was a strong feline element with Nikki Meowda, David Cat-tard and Stirling Meowss all being suggested. Dick Dastardly, Penelope Pitstop and Pat Pending came up as people reminisced about Wacky Races and Pine-erton Fittipaldi, the Green Cross Code Man and Staying Alive all raced too during the evening. Blue and Pine put their paws in their respective pockets and bought themselves two cars with a choice of special powers, and hoped to dominate the race.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue had the Cunning power and made good use of it during the game, though in truth it was rare that she really had a meaningful decision to make. Pink made better use of his Tricky power which enabled him to move cars in reverse order on his turn—he only used it a couple of times, but made them count. Lime’s Determined power was also really helpful enabling him to move an extra couple of spaces when he finished on a straight. Pine, however, was less fortunate and despite winning two auctions was left with an uninspiring special power.

– Image by boardGOATS

Crossing the first betting line in front encourages people to bet on your car and then, invested in its outcome, they tend to help it along for the rest of the race. This is a game where a little help goes a long way so a good start is really important. Lime’s single car and one of Blue’s two cars got away well and competed for that all important early lead. Blue led across the first betting line, but Lime was only just behind leaving it all to race for. And they continued to battle for the lead, leaving the others to fight it out in their wake. Lime was the first to the all important finish line, but Blue took both the remaining podium places with her two cars, which meant it was all down to the betting and initial expenditure.

– Image by boardGOATS

Despite professing to have failed to understand the betting rules, Lime took the magnum of champagne and twenty million, just two million more than Blue. Pink played a blinder to take the final place on the podium with seventeen million despite his car coming in last, a total helped by his minimal initial outlay and betting on the eventual winner at every opportunity. It had been fun, and when Lime suggested playing again, everyone was quite happy to oblige, so the map was flipped over to give the Marina Bay track a go.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine again picked up two cars in the auction, but this time Lime joined him with Pink again taking the last car and getting the Determined special power. Lime once again took an early lead and used his Tricky special power to great effect at key moments. It was clear in spite of the hidden betting that Lime was likely to be the one to beat. There was some discussion about whether he should be helped or hindered, but eventually he crossed the line first. Pink’s solitary, but very Determined car made it home in second and with him betting on himself that left them both of them with a final purse of twenty million and a tie for first place.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine’s second car was still cruising round the final corner while a steward’s inquiry established that Lime was the winner by virtue of his higher placing in the race. It had been a lot of fun, but undoubtedly, a car that takes an early lead has a big advantage. There are lots of “House Rules” available to try to mitigate this effect (modifying the betting, blind dealing of cars, and restrictions on when players can play their super-speed card for example), so we might try some of those next time to mix things up. That said, the expansion maps will change things as well, so we will see. It is certainly a game that will come out again and again for some time to come.

– Image by boardGOATS

Time was marching on and Lime was concerned that the drawbridge over the Thames might be raised if he left too late, but there was just time for a quick game of Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam. Everyone in the group loves Ticket to Ride and the little city versions are great in that they capture all the flavour of the full versions, but in a smaller, quicker package. As in every other edition, on their turn, players can take cards, play cards to place pieces (in this case carts), or take new tickets. Players score points for placing carts and for completing the routes depicted on their tickets (with any unfulfilled tickets giving negative points).

– Image by boardGOATS

Each map has its own special little feature and in the Amsterdam version has extra goods cards awarded for completing specific sections of track; these give bonus points for players with more of these at the end of the game. Pink, Lime and Pine started hard, but Blue soon caught up making for a tight game. Blue skirted round the north leaving the others to fight over the city centre and particularly Lime and Pine to curse when Pink grabbed a singleton and obstructed their plans from the very first turn.

– Image by boardGOATS

Towards the end of the game, Pink started picking up tickets and was quickly followed by everyone else except Lime who stuck with his starting hand and concentrated on completing them. Pine debated whether or not to pick up tickets and in the end went for it only for Blue to promptly trigger the end of the game. Blue had a significant lead, but as always, tickets would be critical and everyone was in with a shout. Sadly it was not to be: Blue had completed all hers and also finished with the most goods cards giving her the bonus for that too and with it a total of forty-five points, eight more than Pink in second place.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Santa is Awesome.

Goats in the News: How to Deal with Christmas Tree Remains

Goats can provide a great solution for environmental problems—a couple of years ago we reported how flocks of goats visit the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California to clear scrub and help prevent fires. This week, an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live with staff at Kentish Town City Farm, the UK’s oldest city farm, explained how their goats are helping to dispose of unwanted Christmas trees.

– from bbc.co.uk

The excitement is building in Goat HQ! If haven’t booked your #ChristmasTree in for collection yet, what are you waiting for?!🌲https://t.co/gqcsPcK8oc🌲#recycling @sianberry @radioleary @NewJournal @HamandHigh @CityCorpHeath @HH_VanHire @kentishtowner @CamdenCouncil @camdenist pic.twitter.com/IMZ99psmGh

— Kentish Town City Farm (@KTCityFarm) January 2, 2022

– from twitter.com

Boardgames in the News: Management Changes SPIEL at Essen

The International Spieltage, SPIEL, sometimes known simply as “Essen”, began in 1983 as the “Deutsche Spielertage” (German Games Fair), a gathering of readers of a specialized gaming magazine. At the time there were just twelve invited exhibitors and the event was held at the Essen College of Further Education. The following year, however, there were fifteen thousand visitors and in 1985 the event moved to the “Gruga” Messe Essen Exhibition Center. It has been there ever since, and in 2019 there were a reported one thousand two hundred exhibitors and over two hundred thousand visitors.

– Image by boardGOATS

After the partition of Germany, in 1949, four toy manufacturers held a German toy fair in Nuremberg. The following year the exhibition committee and forty-six firms established a cooperative to run the fair, called Spielwarenmesse. It has recently been announced that the Spielwarenmesse cooperative has now acquired Friedhelm Merz Verlag GmbH, the company that runs SPIEL, the largest games fair in Europe, with the deal taking effect from the start of 2022. Spielwarenmesse is currently run by around a hundred and fifty companies and has been developing its portfolio recently having also acquired the Internationale Spieleerfindermesse or Game Inventors’ Fair. The company additionally manage trade fairs in China, India and Russia.

– Image by spielwarenmesse-eg.de

In the press release, Spielwarenmesse state they intend to preserve the character of SPIEL which will remain at the Messe in Essen with Dominique Metzler continuing as director with Florian Hess from Spielwarenmesse, as a co-director. Christian Ulrich, Spokesperson for the Executive Board of Spielwarenmesse is quoted as saying, “With SPIEL, we are expanding our responsibilities in the business area for games, without changing the typical character of the fair.”

– Image from spiel-messe.com

Next Meeting, 30th December 2021

Our next meeting, and the last of the year, will be on Thursday 30^th December 2021. We will start playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer (the table is booked from 6.30pm for those who would like to eat first).

Normally, we hold a New Year party in a private house, but with the current situation it feels more sensible to meet a day early in the more spacious environment of The Jockey. Normally at this time of year, we play the gorgeous puck-flicking, racing game, PitchCar, but it seems a little unreasonable in the pub. So this time, the “Feature Game” will be another car racing game, Downforce. We played this at New Year last year, but that was online, this time we will hear players swearing in person.

– Adapted from image by BGG contributor kalchio

And speaking of driving at Christmas…

Jeff was driving home from a Christmas party, but his car was swerving all over the road, so a traffic officer pulled him over.

“Can you step out of the car please, sir,” said the policeman, “I am going to have to ask you to take a breathalyzer test.”

“I can’t,” Jeff responded. “You see I have very bad asthma, that could set off an attack.”

“OK sir,” said the constable, “Then I’m afraid we will have to do a blood test—you’ll have to come with me to the nearest police station…”

“Sorry officer, I can’t do that either,” Jeff replied. “I am a hemophiliac, so if a wound is opened, I won’t stop bleeding, and could bleed to death.”

“Well, we could do a urine sample then,” suggested the police officer getting a little exasperated, “We’d have to do that at the station too though.”

Jeff paused and then answered, “Sadly, I also have diabetes and that could push my sugar count really low.”

By this time, the traffic officer was really losing patience and snapped back, “Fine, in that case just get out of the care and walk a straight line for me.”

“Oh, I can’t do that…” answered Jeff.

“Why ever not?” demanded the exasperated copper.

“Well ossifer,” replied Jeff cheerfully, “That’d be because I’m drunk!”

Golden GOAT Award Winners – 2021

Just before Christmas, the boardGOATS meet for food, have a bit of a party, and decide the winners of the GOAT Awards. Sadly, that wasn’t possible last year, so this year we made up for it with lots of crackers, cards, and lots of festive treats. While waiting for food, the group voted for our favourite game of the year. As in previous years, we awarded two prizes: the Golden GOAT for our favourite game and the “GOAT Poo” award for our least favourite.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

As usual, everyone had three points to hand out for the Golden GOAT Award plus a bonus if wearing Festive Attire, but we limited each person to a maximum of two points per game (after a little controversy over the voting last time). Everyone could also nominate up to two individual games for the GOAT Poo Prize. This year, there were several nominations for GOAT Poo, but the clear winner was Dingo’s Dreams. This is probably quite a clever game that we would normally enjoy, but we played it online with lots of people, none of whom had any idea what they were trying to do. As a result, the complete chaos made for a very un-fun experience all round.

– Image by boardGOATS

With all the online games, there was less competition than usual, but the 2019 winner, Wingspan, was very nearly the first game to win the Golden GOAT award twice. In the event, it was just pipped to victory by Praga Caput Regni – quite an achievement given that only four people in the group had played it. While discussing possible candidates for Moment of the Year everyone fondly reminisced about the time Lime accidentally joined an online game of 6 Nimmt! with a bunch of Frenchmen, but that was last year. The GOATS have long memories though, and it would seem that they still haven’t forgiven Pink for stealing everyone else’s gems in Niagara, despite his repeated assertions that he was “just following the rules”.

– Adapted by boardGOATS from image by
BGG Contributor El_Comandante

16th December 2021

Ivory, always excitable when it comes to Christmas, was first to arrive, shortly followed by Blue and Pink, with armfuls of crackers, parcels, party poppers and Golden GOAT voting forms. It was our first visit to The Jockey since the retirement of the Charles and Anna, but Michelle and John made us very welcome on their first full day, and were very understanding of the noise mess we inevitably made.

– Image by boardGOATS

We started with the crackers, frantically chasing dice, chocolates, and meeples all over the place, and then suffering the flock of appalling goaty jokes with which they were filled. As people munched the chocolates from their crackers they filled in their Golden GOAT voting forms, then Pine and Pink collated the results. There were lots of nominations for GOAT Poo, but the runaway winner was Dingo’s Dreams. This is probably quite a clever game that we would normally enjoy, but we played it online with lots of people, none of whom had any idea what they were trying to do. As a result, the complete chaos made for a very un-fun experience all round.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Discussion surrounding the Moment of the Year included reminiscences of the time Lime accidentally joined an online game of 6 Nimmt! with a bunch of Frenchmen, but that was last year and therefore not eligible this time round. Pine and Pink fondly remembered the pasting they gave to Burgundy and Blue when they played Ticket to Ride: Heart of Africa, but the winner was the online game of Niagara when Pink won by stealing gems from everyone else—an event that still lingers in the the memory of those who were robbed and are even now dreaming of revenge.

– Adapted by boardGOATS from image by
BGG Contributor El_Comandante

With all the online gaming, there was less competition than usual for the Golden GOAT award. Indeed, the 2019 winner, Wingspan, was very nearly the first game to win the Golden GOAT award twice, but much to Green’s obvious delight, it was just pipped to victory by Praga Caput Regni – quite an achievement given that only four people in the group had even played it. We spent our winnings from the quiz on appetizers and with some having a full three-course dinner, we weren’t finished till quite late. There was just time for a game or two though…

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine was keen to play Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries, but after the Heart of Africa experience nobody else was enthusiastic to join him. Ivory was keen to play the “Feature Game” which was Santa’s Workshop, so Pink, Blue and Burgundy joined him. This is a medium-light weight worker placement game, similar to Stone Age, Lords of Waterdeep or Viticulture, but with a festive theme. Players operate teams of elves making presents for Santa to deliver on Christmas Eve.

– Image by boardGOATS

On their turn, players can send elves to collect wish-list items, mine for coal, visit the metal, wood, fabric, plastic and assembly workshops, or train their elves so they work more efficiently. Players earn Cookies for every gift they make, and every three days, Santa carries out an inspection and the teams that have made the most gifts get more Cookies. The elves can also visit the Reindeer Stables to get help and more Cookies—the player whose team of elves has earned the most Cookies by the end of Christmas Eve is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is played over the nine days before Christmas, appropriately from 16^th December (the date of our “Un-Christmas Dinner”) up to and including Christmas Eve. Each gift card shows what it is made of and how much assembly it will need, as well as how many Cookies it will earn when it is completed. One of the things that makes this game a little different to other worker placement games is that players are unable to store resources: elves must first acquire the gift card, then the materials to make the gift (wood, plastic, fabric and metal), and only then can the elves assemble the gift.

– Image by boardGOATS

The idea is that the elf is taking the pieces to the assembly room and making it there, so timing is everything. If a player visits receives five pieces of wood, but can only use three, the other two go to waste. Players can improve their situation by getting some of their elves trained—this costs a turn, but a visit to the School Room means they can use this additional skill to produce more material or assemble things more efficiently. The question is whether this is worth the effort as the game is played over just nine days with only three turns per day (or four at lower player counts).

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue and Burgundy started fast and took the bonus Cookies for the most productive team at the end of the 18^th December, but by the end of the Christmas Eve, Ivory and Pink were getting the most Cookies for being the most productive while Blue and Burgundy’s attentions were elsewhere. Ivory started out making a lovely wooden music box, but then moved rapidly into making plastic tat. Selling coal to Santa was also highly lucrative (Santa always needs coal to give to naughty children).

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue did the reverse, starting by making Lego bricks with lots of plastic and then moving on to making dressing up clothes and a lovely teddy bear which she failed to assemble. Burgundy also struggled with his assembly and spent quite a lot of time visiting the stable and petting Comet (to take the first player marker) or Donna (to obtain the assistance of Zelf to get extra material). Pink similarly struggled and felt it was important to prioritise being the first player at certain points during the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was a very close game and the final few turns were really critical as players tried to make sure they completed everything they could and most realised they couldn’t finish what they wanted to. Ivory thought he might just make it and gambled on getting enough visits to the assembly room to do what he needed. In contrast, Blue pragmatically took the Cookies from Dasher’s stable and gave up all hope that she might be able to assemble her gifts. And that made the difference, giving Blue victory, finishing ten Cookies ahead of Ivory, with Pink just behind in third.

– Image by boardGOATS

Although not an exceptional game, Santa’s Workshop is unquestionably one of the best festive games we’ve played—all the more so as it has a genuine Christmas theme rather than simply being “snowy”. Sadly, the pieces lack a little something, especially Santa, but we made up for that by stealing the bits from Christmas Penguins, which we played a couple of years ago and had great bits, but lacked something in the game-play. The game itself was purchased in a couple of years ago and sent on by a friend in Australia, but first got caught in the bush fires there and then playing it was delayed by Covid when last year’s Christmas Event was online; the verdict was that it was worth the wait though.

– Image by boardGOATS

On the next table, the rest of the group settled down to play Carcassonne: Winter Edition. This is essentially the same as the original “blue box version” of the tile playing game, Carcassonne, but with a pretty snowy scheme, which everyone agreed they preferred to the usual version. So, as with the original, the game play is very simple: on their turn, the active player plays a tile, adding it to the map (ensuring all the edges agree) and then optionally place a meeple on the tile before scoring any completed features.

– Image by boardGOATS

The features on the tiles include city segments, roads and cloisters. Players score two points for each tile in a city or road they own if it is completed during the game, or one point at the end if incomplete. Similarly, Cloisters score nine points when completely surrounded or one point for the central tiles and each surrounding it at the end of the game. The clever part of the game is that while players cannot add a meeple to a feature that is already owned by another player, these can be joined together and then shared so that both players score.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time, the group also included the the Lebkuchenmann expansion. This consists of additional Gingerbread Man tiles mixed in with the base game; when drawn, the player moves the brown Gingerbread Meeple to an unfinished city of their choice. Before he is moved, however, the current city containing the Gingerbread Man is scored. Each player receives points for the number of meeples they have in the city multiplied by the number of tiles in the city. Thus, even players that only one meeple in the city when their opponents have more get a few points.

– Image by boardGOATS

The Gingerbread Man also leaves the current city when someone adds the tile that completes it and the Gingerbread Man is scored just before the normal scoring. This means it is sometimes desirable to finish someone else’s city, in order to move the Gingerbread Man or to make them earn fewer points for it. The clever part about the Lebkuchenmann expansion is that it can be played in both a friendly and a spiteful way.

– Image by boardGOATS

Very early in the game, Green, Purple and Lilac all found themselves with cities which looked all but impossible to close out. Black went for an early “Farmer”, making snow angels and Green followed suit. “Farmers” only score at the end of the game, giving points for the number of cities the field supplies, but they tie up the meeples for the rest of the game and, if placed early can end up being cut off yielding a poor score. So, only time would tell whether this would prove to be a master move or a waste of a good meeple.

– Image by boardGOATS

Lilac was building herself a nice big city, obtained the first Gingerbread Man and placed it into her growing metropolis. This attracted the attention of Pine who set up camp in a small city across the open divide. On his next turn he got exactly the tile he needed (a city tile with two opposite open ends), and joined the two together. When the city was completed shortly after, both Pine and Lilac scored, not just for the city, but for the Gingerbread Man too. This put them both out into a commanding lead on the score board, with Pine half a dozen points ahead—a lead he would not relinquish for the rest of the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the meantime, the rest of the group kept drawing road tiles. The Gingerbread Meeple was very handy to get some of the awkward, incomplete cities to score at least something, as he hopped around the board giving out gifts. As the snowy scene expanded and grew, more farmers were placed, more cities were completed, and roads wiggled their way round the landscape joining areas previously separated. As one of his last moves, Green found the one tile that would fit into the gap next to his first city to complete it. This did something else, too, that would have a game-changing impact, though nobody realised it until scoring.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the last tile placed everyone scored their uncompleted cities, roads and cloisters. At this point Pine was still in front, with Lilac not too far behind in second—the Farmers were going to be key. Black and Green had managed to maneuver two Farmers each into the same massive field, but sadly Purple’s lone farmer got booted out. Lilac had a couple of farmers on the other side of the board, one gave her two cities and the other gave her three, just enough to push her ahead of Pine (who had eschewed the whole farming in the snow business as being too cold for him).

– Image by boardGOATS

Green’s and Black’s Farmers had amassed a total of huge total of ten cities for their shared field, which brought them right into contention. Scores were just about to be added to the board when Black pointed out that his (and Green’s) field went further round and actually swallowed Lilac’s farmer with three cities due to the tile placed by Green to complete that city. So Lilac lost nine of her points and Green’s and Black’s new field total was for thirteen cities giving them thirty-nine points each. This leapfrogged both of them ahead of Pine and Lilac, with Green coming out a few points on top. A close game, everyone enjoyed. This edition is a worthy edition with the Lebkuchenmann expansion a perfect little festive addition too.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: ‘Elf and Safety is everyone’s business.

Next Meeting – 16th December 2021

Our next meeting will be on Thursday, 16^th December, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale.

As this is our last meeting before Christmas
we will be meeting early from 6.45pm for pizzas and Christmas festivities.

This week, the “Feature Game” will be Santa’s Workshop followed by a range of Christmas and winter themed games like Christmas Tree, Snow Tails, Carcassonne: Winter Edition, Giftmas at Dungeon Abbey, Gingerbread House and Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. We’ve been waiting over two years to play Santa’s Workshop as the game was caught up in the Australian bush fires late in 2019 and the global pandemic meant we were unable to play it last year. Third time lucky!

– Image by boardGOATS

And speaking of Christmas…

Jeff wasn’t in a festive mood. He was in a lot of pain, so he went to see his doctor to get the problem looked at.

“What seems to be the problem?” Jeff’s GP asked.

Jeff looked a bit shifty and uncomfortable, and not just due to his ailment. “I’ve, er… got um…” he mumbled.

“Speak up, I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s the matter,” interrupted the doctor.

Jeff tried again, “I’ve, um…” but again his voice faded away to silence.

The doctor took pity on him and gently coaxed him on, “Is it something to do with an intimate area? You know there’s nothing to be ashamed of, we’re all the same really. Now what’s bothering you? You can tell me.”

Jeff took a deep breath “Doctor…” then he blurted out, “I seem to have a mince pie stuck up my bottom!”

“Oh, you’re in luck,” answered the Doctor, “I’ve got some cream for that!”

2nd December 2021 – boardGOATS do the Quiz

While Blue, Pink and Burgundy were waiting for their supper to arrive, Teal, Green and Lilac turned up. Since Teal wasn’t staying for the quiz, the group decided to squeeze in a quick game of NMBR 9. Although the game officially only plays four, we have two sets which means eight people can play together. This is a game we have played quite a bit recently, largely because it is very quick to play and has almost zero set up time. Everyone except Teal had played it before too, so a very quick explanation later and people were placing tiles.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is driven by a deck of cards each of which represents one of the tiles which are shaped like the numbers zero to nine. The numbers are really important in the scoring as each is multiplied by the storey it is on, so the higher the number is, the more it is worth. With some of the high scoring tiles coming out at awkward times, it felt like comparatively low scoring game compared with some of the recent efforts.

– Image by boardGOATS

It might have been beginner’s luck, but Teal played a great game on his first attempt scoring eighty one, taking victory by six points from Blue with Green taking third. Food had turned up towards the end, followed by Black, Purple and Pine, so once dinner had been dispatched there was time for a quick game of 6 Nimmt! before the Quiz. This is one of our favourite games (and won the Golden GOAT award last Christmas), but we rarely play it with so many.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is really simple: players simultaneously choose a card which are then placed in turn at the end of one of the four rows on the table. Starting with the lowest value card, the cards are added to the row that end with the highest number that is lower than the card itself. If a card is the sixth in the row, the player takes the first five into their scoring pile and the card instead becomes the first and only card in the row. The player with the fewest “nimmts” is the winner. This time, while Teal, Black and Pine were busy picking up cards Green, Pink and Purple were keeping it tight.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pink and Purple tied on six with Green just one point behind. Purple took victory in the end, with a quickly invented tie break (guess the number of the single left-over card). There wasn’t time for another game and after Charles had been round with the pictures, we presented him and Anna with a signed wooden goat and a card to thank them for looking after us so well over the last nine years. Next time we meet, the Jockey will be under new management. In the meantime, we had the Quiz to focus on though.

– Image by boardGOATS

Things started badly as we struggled with the picture round, usually a strength. However, we took an early lead with a series of Perfect Ten rounds. It couldn’t last, but by the time we got round to scoring the Pictures we had a healthy lead. Getting all three anagrams helped (no “Orvilles” this time) and a fairly straightforward “Who am I” also went in our favour, finally resulting in victory. The first time we did the Quiz (Christmas 2016) we won, but since then, despite coming close we’ve never achieved the same heights. It was fitting therefore to bookend our attempts under Charles with a second win. And we’ll put the winnings towards our unChristmas Dinner next time.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Winning is all the sweeter after a few near misses and the odd “Orville”.