Tag Archives: PitchCar: Extension 2 – More Speed More Fun

31st December 2023

First to arrive, on the dot of 7pm, were Purple and Black together with Black’s mum, Sable. So they got the dubious honour of setting up the PitchCar track for the “Feature Game”. They chose one of the standard tracks from the second Extension (number five, which includes the tunnel from the first extension), and re-christened it, “Purple’s Hatch”. They hadn’t finished setting up when Jade arrived as a scout on behalf of the party from Swindon, checking they’d got the right house. In due course, Sapphire, Plum and Byzantium found their way round the back, eventually followed by Pine making a total of ten, and leaving so many shoes by the back door that it looked like a millipede was visiting.

– Image by boardGOATS

Over picky bits (Devils-on-Horseback, Pigs-in-Blankets, crisps, crudites and dips), the group began playing PitchCar. A simple race game, starting with the player at the front, players take it in turns to flick their wooden puck-car. The first player to cross the finish line after a set number of laps (in this case, two), is the winner. If a player “offs it” or finishes wheel-side up, they go back to where they were (losing stroke and distance), however, if they knock someone else, the victim gains the distance, regardless of where they land or whether they are rolled. To decide the order on the grid, there was a flick off, which was won by Sable on her debut.

– Image by boardGOATS

Unfortunately, although Sable started really well with a super-flick to give her pole position, she was soon over-taken as her inexperience told. In fact, starting at the front of the grid seemed to be a bit of a poison chalice this time, and Purple who started second and Plum who started third were also quickly overtaken by the rest of the field. Amid the mayhem, Byzantium started fourth and somehow remained in fourth place for pretty much the whole race. Similarly, Jade started in sixth and gained a single place finishing just behind him. The battle for the lead was therefore between Pine, Black and Sapphire the latter two starting from the very back of the grid.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the half-way point, Sapphire had the lead with Black in second and Pine in third, but by the end of the second lap, Black had caught and passed Sapphire to take the chequered flag, soon followed by Sapphire and Pine. The rest of the pack eventually all crossed the line, with Purple, some way behind who suddenly started playing brilliantly after everyone else had finished, ending the game with the longest and best distance past the finish line. By then, food was pretty much ready, so everyone engaged in the close-packing problem of re-packing PitchCar into its flight cases before settling down for Moroccan themed stews served with couscous, millet, roast cauliflower, meatballs and bread.

– Image by boardGOATS

After tea there was a bit of chatter, but with an hour or so to midnight, Pink was keen to play one of his favourite party games, Ca$h ‘n Guns. This is a silly game where players are a mafia gang dividing up their ill-gotten gains by playing a variant on “Chicken“. After loading their guns with either blanks or live bullets, on a count-down from the Godfather, players simultaneously point their foam guns at each other. The Godfather then gives another countdown, after which, people can back out, avoiding any bullets, but also withdrawing their claim to the loot for the round. The remaining players reveal their bullet cards and anyone still standing after the shoot-out takes their share of the loot. The player with the most after eight rounds is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pink started off as the Godfather, but soon lost that advantage and discovered that although people don’t gang up on the Mafia Leader, it’s shocking how they turn on you once you are no longer in power. Black began building his art collection, until people spotted that was what he was trying to do, and then targeted him as well. He was the first to be knocked out, taking his third and final hit in the penultimate round, round seven. Sapphire soon followed and was taken out in the final round—it later became apparent that was not something he was going to forget quickly! Purple and Pink amassed substantial totals, enough to give them second and third respectively.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was Pine, however, who won by a bit of a landslide, though. He was helped along by the Gem Dealer bonus of $60,000, however, which made the majority of the difference between him and Purple, though he would have just pipped her to mafia-stardom without it. By this time, it was just ten minutes to midnight, so Pink went to find the champagne (generously supplied by Jade), while everyone else packed away the foam firearms. The GOATS countdown to midnight was slightly off compared to Jools Holland (who was on iPlayer and therefore lagging behind somewhat) and everyone toasted the new year and remembered those who were not able to be with us (in particular Green, Lilac, Lime and Burgundy). Plum marked new year by fighting her way into the chocolate piñata with a ladle.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue and Plum stood outside on the step watching for fireworks, but although they heard some, there was a disappointing lack spectacle. At the time, they thought they had just missed them, but it later turned out that this was at least in part due to anonymous, slightly threatening letters, from someone worried about their pooch. Eventually, Plum and Blue gave up and came in from the cold and everyone played a mad and quite random game of 6 Nimmt! together as the first game of 2024. In this game, everyone simultaneously chooses and then reveals a card from their hand. In order from lowest to highest, these cards are then added to the four rows in the centre of the table.

– Image by boardGOATS

Each card is added to the row that ends in the highest value card that is still lower than the card played. The addition of this card makes the row longer—if it is the sixth card added, the owner takes the first five into their scoring pile. Each card has a number of Bulls Heads (or “Nimmts”) on it, and the aim of the game is to be the player with the fewest. Normally we play two rounds, but with so many players, we played one round with everyone starting with ten cards. This turned out to be a strange combination of very random and slightly predictable as players could count cards, and it would probably have been better to start with hands of nine instead.

– Image by boardGOATS

Jade and Purple competed for the highest score, but both lost out when the wooden spoon went to Black. Blue and Pink did well only picking up five Nimmts apiece, while Pine did slightly better with four. The clear winner was Plume, however, who somehow managed to avoid picking up any Nimmts at all, and on her first try too. As the evening wound up, there was a lot of gentle chatter, nibbling of chocolate and sweets, and finishing off drinks, before everyone eventually headed off to their beds having given 2024 a very warm welcome.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: GOATS can party like it’s 1999 every year.

31st December 2018

The evening began with Pine’s arrival, and he helped Pink rearrange the furniture for PitchCar while Blue added the finishing touches to supper. PitchCar is a brilliantly simple, dexterity car racing game—players take it in turns to flick their wooden cars, and the first one to get round the track three times is the winner. Before long Burgundy, Purple and Black had arrived and pieces from the base game and five of the first six expansions were all over the place and everyone was diving in trying to make an interesting looking track. There was a problem though, the problem we always have, which is a shortage of straight sections. It was then that Blue produced another expansion from under the sofa: the “Long Straights“. These are exactly what they sound like, two, very long, plank-like, straight sections that are a pain to store and difficult to transport, so rarely get used. They have the potential to add a very fast section to the track though, so this time we used both with a tight hairpin in between them to add interest.

– Image by boardGOATS

Like last year, instead of making a circuit, we made a single long race track weaving around plates of crudites, mugs of tea, and trays of “pigs in blankets”. There was a big debate whether to use The Cross as a cross-roads or back-to-back corners. In the end, the double corners won, the track was complete and we had a push off to see who would start at the front of the grid. Black won with a magnificent flick, followed closely by Purple. Blue stalled on the grid and the only one to come off worst was Burgundy who came off the track and defaulted to the back of the grid. The race began: Black and Purple continued strongly and everyone else shuffled about in the middle order with Burgundy bringing up the rear. Then Burgundy adjusted is driving style slightly and gradually began to work his way through the field. Meanwhile the wheels dropped off for Purple who had briefly taken the lead, but suddenly seemed to lose the knack of flicking, and gradually, the rest of the pack overtook her one by one.

– Image by boardGOATS

Almost everyone had trouble going over the bridge, but particularly Blue, Pink and Purple. Eventually they made it over though and shot down the rail to the hairpin some failed to make the corner, but the long straights added a bit of speed and excitement. The tunnel ended up being a relay race with Black getting stuck under the bridge, only to be pushed out by Blue, who in turn also got stuck and was freed by Pink. Similarly, he was freed by Burgundy and Burgundy was liberated by Pine. And that order was maintained all the way to the finishing line, despite Blue needing several shots at crossing it without overshooting. Green and his lady-friend, Lilac, had been held up though were expected any second; food wasn’t quite ready either so we ran the race in reverse starting with Purple, the last player to cross the line in the first race.

– Image by boardGOATS

Inevitably, we’d only just started when Green and Lilac arrived, so they just joined in. In fact by this time, Blue had actually managed to go backwards and was further behind the line than others were in front of it. With the larger pack, this time round the race was even more eventful with Black managing to park his car in a plate of crudites just missing a bowl of salsa and Pink repeatedly bouncing off the edge of the mouth of the tunnel obstructing everyone else behind him. Bizarrely, although the tunnel caused mayhem, the bridge was much less of a problem this time though with Pine leading the way by deftly bunny-hopping over it and almost everyone else just following his example. Leading over the bridge was a huge advantage, and though Blue threatened to catch him, he maintained his position to the finish. With food ready and waiting, the track was progressively dismantled as those bringing up the rear made their way to the finish line. Although it only gets an outing two or three times a year, PitchCar is always great fun and the seventh expansion, “The Loop” which is due in the new year, looks like it will add even more madness to the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

With PitchCar over and the track in a heap in the corner, food swiftly appeared in the guise of enchiladas with corn on the cob, nachos and some strange yellow, habanero salsa that reminded Pine of wallpaper paste. Supper was accompanied by more special crackers, little parcels, Herb Alpert and the Tujuana Brass, and finished with ice cream, and then it was on with the games; after a little debate first up was Ca$h ‘n Guns. This is push your luck game with a gangster theme played over a series of eight multi-player duels over their ill-gotten spoils. The player with the largest haul after eight rounds is the winner, as long as they are still alive of course. Each player has a character standee, a foam gun, and a clip of three bullet cards and eight blank cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the start of each round, everyone simultaneously chooses a whether to “load” their gun with a bullet or a blank, and on the count of three, points it at one of the other players. On a second count of three, they choose whether to remain in, or withdraw taking their shot with them. Anyone whose target is still standing reveals whether their gun was loaded with a live bullet or a blank. Anyone who received a shot takes a plaster signifying their wound and is out of the rest of the round; three wounds and they are eliminated from the game. All players remaining then take it in turns to take a loot card from the centre of the table—there are eight cards, so the number of cards each player gets depends on how many players have survived the “duel”.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game can be quite brutal, and this was no exception, indeed, Black was out in the second round and Green quickly followed. Pine pointed out that everyone on his side of the table had been injured while Blue, Pink and Burgundy were all uninjured. Purple decided to fix that and faced off with Burgundy, both ending up injured as a result. Lilac proved a dangerous adversary as she collected extra bullets from the loot and ended up with a full set going into the final rounds. Blue injured Burgundy and coped a bullet in return. After Black’s and Green’s dismissal, everyone was more circumspect and didn’t gamble as readily with their lives, so all the other players survived to the end of the game. That just left the small matter of the scores.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine and Purple had both been collecting gems, but had finished up with the same number so neither picked up the $60,000 bonus for having the most. Blue had started out collecting artwork, but there wasn’t much available. It became clear why, when the loot for the final round was revealed: almost all of it was art. It was tough in the final round; Blue was taken out by Burgundy, which effectively removed her from the running. Pink had been doing well as the Godfather, but had taken a couple of hits in the latter stages and was also taken out of the final round. Pink finished with $110,000 and second place. The final round was attritional and there were few people left to share the swag. Most of the artwork ended up going to Pine and with it first place overall thanks to a final total of $123,000 worth of loot.

– Image by boardGOATS

There was still time till midnight, and it was a toss-up between two of our favourite light games, 6 Nimmt! and Las Vegas, in the end we went for dice over cards and played Las Vegas. This is a very simple game, but a lot of fun. The play area is made up of six casinos, each numbered one to six with a jackpot drawn at random from a deck of money cards. With eight players, each jackpot totals at least $90,000 and comprises one or more notes. On their turn, players must use all the dice of one number to bet on the casino of that number by placing them on that casino tile. Once everyone has placed all their dice the player who placed the most dice on a casino takes the highest value currency card. The player with the most money after four rounds is the winner. The snag is that before any money is handed out, any dice leading to a draw are removed. It is this rule that makes the game interesting, raising the decisions above the trivial.

– Image by boardGOATS

We usually play with a few “House Rules”: we replace one of each player’s dice with a big, “double weight” die from the Las Vegas Boulevard expansion; we include the Slot Machine, and only play three rounds. The Slot Machine is a little different to the Casinos as players place all their dice of one number on the tile, but each number can only be placed once. Unlike the Casinos, if there is a draw, then the player with the total number of pips wins, and if it’s still a tie, then the player with the highest value die wins. The game is very robust to interruptions which is just as well as we took a break at midnight for toasts to the new year and to Ivory’s new arrival (we are looking forward to his return in March). Prosecco and sparkling apple juice were accompanied by the village fireworks, an exceptional panettone and mince pies and eventually everyone made it back to the table and the game resumed.

– Image by boardGOATS

Perhaps it was the interruptions, but Black’s game went almost as badly as it had in Ca$h ‘n Guns, and he won nothing at all in the first two rounds and not much in the third. It turned out that Purple and Burgundy didn’t do any better as all three finished with just $100,000. That was better than Green however, who made a paltry $20,000. Pink started off really well, but at the start of the second round we realised he was using one more die than anyone else. After paying a $10,000 penalty, he finished with $240,000, $10,000 more than Blue. Lilac, on the other hand, took more in the first round than Blue or Pink took in the whole game and finished with $410,000.

– Image by boardGOATS

Normally $410,000 would be more than enough to guarantee a win, but Pine, who took three $70,000 notes in the final round alone finished with a massive $510,000, a personal and probably group record. With the game over, Green took Lilac home to nurse her sore throat and everyone else finished their drinks and chatted for a while, watching Pink and Pine demolish a bottle of Bavarian whisky picked up in Essen during the Spiel. Everyone who had been there commented how much they had enjoyed The Gallerist at the ninth “Monster Game” session a few days earlier. Although it had taken ages and was very complex, it wasn’t a real brain-burner and everything had been done well. The rule book was good, the board was clearly laid out, the player-aids were helpful, the pieces were great and the box was really top quality—in fact, it was almost the complete opposite of Agra, which struggled through at the previous “Monster Games” event. The second game, Reef, had also gone down well, but everyone was particularly keen to give The Gallerist another go.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: GOATS enjoy a good party just as much as the next ruminant.

31st December 2017

Green and Burgundy were the first to arrive, and were stood on the doorstep at 7pm on the dot. This was possibly just because they were punctual, but may have been because they knew the first people to arrive would get the chance to set up the track for the evening’s “Feature Game”, the gorgeous, dexterity car-racing game, PitchCar. Everyone had played it before except Azure, so he had a quick run of the track while Blue put out snacks and Pink sorted everyone out with drinks. Like last year, Green and Burgundy designed a single, long, winding path with the idea being that it was a simple sprint to the finish rather than several circuits.

– Image by boardGOATS

Building the track is always a challenge, but Green and Burgundy had decided to maximise the difficulty by trying to use every piece of expansion in the box, including both crosses and the new double jump. This made the track really quite complex, featuring a wide bridge/tunnel and a couple of jumps (for those brave enough to give them a go). Rather than the usual “flying lap” to see who starts, each player had a single flick with the longest going first. Blue took pole, but didn’t make it as far on her second attempt and within a few turns was in the lower half of the placings. Similarly, Purple who had started second on the grid quickly began to move backwards too. In contrast, Pink and Green who had started at the back of the grid, began a rapid rise through the field. There were some really spectacular flicks, some that were successful, others that were almost successful, and a few that were horrific failures and received suitable opprobrium.

– Image used with permission of
BGG contributor kilroy_locke

The final bridge proved to be one of the greatest sticking points though as it was built from pieces that weren’t really intended to be used in that way, making joins quite difficult to traverse. Blue, who had gone from the front to the back and back to the front, was the first to get stuck, but was forced to watch as Pine cruised past her showing her how to do it. She proved a slow learner, however, as Green and Pink followed a couple of rounds later, while she struggled to make it over the step. With the bridge so close to the finishing line, it turned out to be the discriminating factor in the race, and Pine finished the clear winner, with Green finishing a short nose ahead of Pink. Meanwhile, the rest of the field passed Blue who by now had finally made it onto the bridge, but who seemed to have run out of fuel and limped home in last place, a couple of flicks behind Burgundy, who had been convinced no-one would be challenging him for the wooden spoon.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor garyjames

While everyone else participated in the game of cooperative Tetris that is packing the track back into its case, Blue put the finishing touches to the supper of Cheesy Pasta Bake with fresh vegetables and a side order of Christmas trimmings. These included “Pigs in Blankets” (or rather “Boars in Duvets”), “Devils on Horseback” and home made crackers that went off spectacularly and sent a shower of tiny pieces all over the room. With food finished, there was a quick game of “Musical Chairs” before everyone settled into two groups for the next round of games. The first group, Green, Pine, Purple and Burgundy, fancied a bit of piratin’ and went for Black Fleet, a fairly simple, but thematic game. The idea is that each player has a fleet consisting of a Merchant ship and a Pirate ship; there are also two Naval ships which players also control. So, on their turn, players choose one action card which enables them to move their two ships round the archipelago depicted on the large and sumptuous board.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Before, during or after moving, ships can carry out an action. Merchant ships can can load or sell goods at an appropriate port, while Pirate ships may attack an opposing Merchant vessel in a neighbouring space and steal one cube of cargo (earning two Doubloons for its trouble) or bury some cargo they’ve stolen. Ships can only carryout one action on their turn, so Pirates can only steal or bury on their turn, not both. And they must avoid the Navy frigates as they do it because they can sink Pirate ships (also earning two Doubloons). In addition to the Action cards, players can also play as many fortune cards as they like; these break the other rules of the game and and make play a little more unpredictable. Finally, there are the Development cards, which both give players extra powers and act as the game timer, with the game finishing when one player has paid to activate all their Development cards.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

There was much piratin’, tradin’ and policin’ of the ocean waves. Purple was an unfortunate early target simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Green tried to target Burgundy, but a wily Merchant, he maintained his distance. Initially a lot of action took place on the western side of the board, and while Green began to bring in the money, Pine and Purple struggled to gain traction. Green was the first to activate a Development card, but he was followed by Burgundy on the next turn. By now Purple and Pine were complaining loudly that they were being picked upon, but that’s the trouble with this game, it tends to reward the leaders. Green and Burgundy activated their second cards in the same turn, but Green’s was of a higher value, meaning that he then activated his third card (the one with the lowest value) the following turn.

– Image by BGG contributor spielemitkinder

By now the action had shifted to the east, Purple and Pine had finally managed to earn enough to activate a card, but by this time they were so far behind their chances of winning were almost zero and so their tactics changed to “get Green and Burgundy”. Unfortunately for Burgundy his ships were closer to Purple and Pine than Green’s were so he bore the brunt of their attack. His merchant ship was attacked and raided by both their pirates in the same turn and his path was blocked. Burgundy abandoned his plans to move it and opted to becalm his ship instead taking compensation for his lack of movement. Green and Burgundy activated their fourth cards in the same turn, but Green had eight Doubloons left while Burgundy only had two. The next turn played out as expected with Green landing a load, activating his final card with four Doubloons left. Burgundy could gain nothing on his final turn, so couldn’t activate his final Development card. Unfortunately, the reward mechanism of gives bonuses to those who activate their Development cards first, which often leads to a runaway winner that the others are unable to catch. That said, it is a fun game and doesn’t last overlong, so is a good game when players are in the mood.

– Image used with permission of BGG
contributor The_Blue_Meeple

Meanwhile on the nearby table Black, Pink, Blue and Azure we trying out a new game, Sagrada. This is a relatively new game, that we’ve only played once in the group before, as part of a “Monster Games” session some months ago. A bit like Terraforming Mars, it is a game that has proved very popular, but was produced by a very small company who did not have the infrastructure or commercial clout to satisfy the demand which vastly exceeded expectation. In the case of Sagrada, however, the game is one of those games with simple rules, but lots of complexity. Players build a stained glass window by building up a grid of dice on their player board. Each board has some restrictions on which colour or shade (value) of die can be placed there and players take it in turns to take dice from a pool and add them to their window. Depending on the difficulty of the starting grid, players start with a small number of favour tokens which act as “get out of jail free” options and allow them to use special tools to rearrange some of the dice, either during “drafting”, or sometimes those already in their window.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Points are awarded for fulfilling certain criteria, depicted on cards drawn at random at the start of the game. Although completing the window can be challenging in its own right if the dice don’t roll well, it is the objective cards that are the key to the game. Each player has their own private objective which scores for the number of pips displayed on dice of a given colour in that player’s window. The public objectives are much more complex though. In this case, the three objectives were: six points for every row with all five colours; two points for every pair of dice showing one and two; four points for every set of five different colours in the final window. Black quickly spotted the synergy between two of the objectives, noting that each row that contained all five different colours would score a massive ten points. Meanwhile, Blue had drawn starting grid cards that were very challenging and was forced to make the best of it, and Pink and Azure, struggled to get to grips what they could and couldn’t do.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Each round, players draw two dice from the pool in “Settlers starting order” (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1). This was something we really struggled with for no very good reason, and things weren’t helped by Blue who got herself into a mess, aggravated by the fact that she kept knocking the dice in her window with her sleeve. Through it all, Black sailed serenely, finishing with a perfect set of five rows, each with five different coloured dice giving him a massive starting score of fifty which he went on to top up to a final total of sixty three. Nobody was going to catch him, but Azure finished in second place with a highly creditable fifty-six, some way clear of Blue and Pink. Both games finished almost simultaneously, and just in time to toast the New Year in and admire the spectacular fireworks in the general direction of our erstwhile gaming home, The Jockey pub.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

With the festivities over, it was time to choose our first game of 2018, and we picked Ca$h ‘n Guns. This is a great party game, that we’ve played at the last couple of New Year parties. This game combines gambling with a little chance and a dash of strategy, based round the theme of gangsters divvying up their ill-gotten gains by playing a sort of multi-player Russian Roulette. Although we used some of the standees from the Expansion, this time we didn’t use the special powers and stuck to the game play of the base game. This is very simple: on the count of three, each player points their foam gun at one other player; the Godfather can then ask one player to change their choice before there is a second count of three giving players a chance to withdraw from the confrontation.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

At this point, everyone still in the round who has a target who has not backed out, reveals whether they chose to load their gun with a blank or a bullet. The game is played over eight rounds and each player starts with three bullets and five blanks, all of which cannot be reused. Anyone who gets shot is out of the round and anyone who receives three wounds is eliminated from the game. We were all quite cagey at the start, so the loot was shared out among the whole group. This didn’t last of course, and it was amid much hilarity that Azure decided to brave the three guns pointed at him only to take three bullets and retire from the game. It was a few more rounds before the next casualty expired, when Black took his third shot and gracefully slid down the curtain to join the choir invisible. Meanwhile, Green and Blue were somewhat hampered by being repeatedly targeted, leaving Pink to collect a large pile of artwork and Purple a huge pile of diamonds. The only real question which of the two was worth the most.

– Image used with permission of
BGG contributor punkin312

Despite picking up the bonus for the most jewels, giving her a total of $122,000, Purple had to settle for second place behind Pink who finished with a fortune of $175,000. Pink, highly satisfied with his success decided to do some washing up, and Green who had to prepare a roast for the next day decided it was time for him to go to leave. Nobody else wanted to go though, so it was only a question of what we would play. It was gone 1am, and nobody was in the mood for anything deep, so we decided it was a good time to introduce Azure to 6 Nimmt!, one of our favourite light, filller games. A very simple “Cards with Numbers” game, 6 Nimmt! gives players the illusion of control while everything is going well, and shatters that illusion when it all goes wrong. We usually play the game over two rounds and it is remarkable how differently they can go. In this case, Azure and Blue came off worst in the first round, however, Purple and Black did particularly badly in the second round, so Azure finished joint second with Burgundy, just two points behind the winner, Pine. By this time, the rain was pouring down, but it was definitely “late”; it had been a great way to say goodbye to 2017 and welcome in 2018.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: It is a great way to start the year, with a foam gun in hand and a group of friends to point it at.

31st December 2015

As people arrived, we began setting up the “Feature Game”. This, as has become traditional at these New Year events, was the gorgeous, dexterity car-racing game, PitchCar. Burgundy and Pink built a fantastic figure-of-eight track that made good use of the ⅛ turns from the second expansion and made a really fast compact circuit. Before long, Black and Purple had arrived and had introduced themselves to the furry host, followed by Grey and Cerise who were armed with Champagne and Polish delicacies.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is quite simple, players take it in turns to flick their small wooden cars once, starting with the player at the front of the pack. If the car leaves the track or rolls over, the player forfeits stroke and distance (though any collateral gains by other players stand). We usually have a single solo lap to determine the order on the start grid and to allow new players to get their eye in, before racing two laps of the track. While Blue and Pink occupied themselves in the kitchen, everyone else began their practice run.

– Image used with permission of
BGG contributor kilroy_locke

Cerise went first and set a very competitive bench-mark of ten flicks mastering the bridge from the first expansion on her second attempt. Asked whether she’d played it before, she replied, not since she was tiny, playing with bottle-tops. It turned out that Grey had also had a similarly mis-spent childhood and this with his competitiveness made him a formidable opponent. Black and Burgundy gave them a run for their money, but Grey took the lead and held off the competition to take first place, with Cerise close behind, a worthy second.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor garyjames

With pizza already over-cooked, everyone helped to quickly pack up and then sat down for dinner. Once everyone had eaten their fill, Pink began tidying while everyone else began the next game, Ca$h ‘n Guns. This game combines gambling with a little chance and a dash of strategy, based round the theme of gangsters divvying up their ill-gotten gains by playing a sort of multi-player Russian Roulette. For some reason, setting up degenerated into a discussion about the offensive weapons act and Tony Martin and the debate was still going by the time Pink had finished what he was doing, so he joined in.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Black, (playing “The Hustler”), chose to enact his special power by trading a bullet card for one of Blue’s blanks, much to her delight. Then, Pink (playing “The Doctor”), started as the Godfather, so acted as caller. So, once everyone had “loaded” their weapon with blanks or bullets, on, the count of three, everyone pointed their foam gun at someone. Pink chose to invoke the Godfather’s Prerogative and decided Purple looked most threatening, so directed her to point her gun at Burgundy. The Godfather then counted to three to give everyone a reasonable chance to withdraw from “The Game”, but also relinquish their claim to a share of the loot for that round.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Throughout, everyone was feeling quite brave, but it was Burgundy (“The Cute”) who had a particularly strong incentive to stay in, as his special power allowed him to take $5,000 before anyone else got a look in. It was a power he used to great effect taking an early obvious lead. Meanwhile, Blue (“The Vulture”) was the first to draw blood, defending her property against Grey (“The Greedy”). Like The Vulture she was, when Grey picked up a second wound, Blue finished him off and took two pictures from his still warm, lifeless hands. With, Burgundy clearly in the lead, Blue had help taking him down, and Pink got caught in the cross-fire.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Picking the pockets of two corpses in the same round made her something of a target and in the next round she found the staring down all three remaining barrels which effectively put her out of the game. Purple (“The Collector”), began collecting diamonds, but, it was Cerise (“The Lucky Man”)’ who picked up the $60,000 for getting the most diamonds. As “The Collector”, Purple managed to score a staggering five pictures netting her $100,000 giving her a cool $156,000, $6,000 ahead of Black in second place, with Cerise a close third with $146,000.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

With seven of us, we’d normally split into two groups, but the party atmosphere had got to us a little, and with limited table space we were keen to stick together. With the majority of Blue and Pink’s not inconsiderable game collection at our disposal, we eschewed the usual go-to seven player game, Bohnanza, and decided to play play Between Two Cities. We played this a few weeks ago, but in essence, it is a draughting game, but one that has the depth of 7 Wonders, but with the simplicity of Sushi Go!. As before, we didn’t use any of the seating randomisers, but since we were all sat in different places and three players were new to it, this didn’t matter.

– Image by boardGOATS

Burgundy and Black began to build up a large number of factories and thought they were in with a chance of scoring heavily with them, but didn’t notice that Grey and Pink, had more, as did Blue and Pink. Blue and Black began with a complete row of shops, and followed it with extensive white collar employment opportunities, but were unable to expand the park as much as they wanted.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Grey and Cerise had developed a retail outlet centre with no fewer than seven shops and a number of conveniently situated houses and office blocks. Cerise’s other city, shared with Purple began as a paradise with parks and entertainments, until they added a factory to increase the value of their housing stock. Parks had been popular at the start of two other cities too, with Purple starting her other city the same way with Burgundy, and Blue and Pink doing something very similar.

– Image by boardGOATS

After three rounds we began the complicated matter of the scores. It was quite close, but Blue and Pink’s City was disproportionately ahead, a problem that was rectified with a quick recount that left two cities jointly leading on sixty. In the normal way, the winning city can only ever be important as a tie-breaker since it is the city with the fewer points that makes each players’ score. In this case, however, Pink owned both, with Blue and Grey. Since Blue’s other city (shared with Black) had fifty-nine points, that put her a close second.

– Image by boardGOATS

A quick interlude followed for non-alcoholic Champagne, alcoholic Prosecco, white chocolate, pistachio and Diaquiri fudge, with the chimes of Big Ben and fireworks. Once the New Year greetings were complete, it was onto the important matter of what to play next. Such a large number of players meant the choices were limited, so we went with a couple of old favourites. Tsuro was first, a quick fun game that we all know well and that featured on our list of ten great games to play with the family at Christmas.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

A game that anyone can play, in Tsuro each player has a “stone” dragon and on their turn places a tile in front of it and moves the dragon along the path. As the board becomes increasingly crowded, the tiles form a maze of paths that the stones must navigate, staying on the board without colliding with anyone else while trying to eliminate everyone else. Grey and Cerise were the first to go out by collision, followed by Burgundy who was ejected from the board by Purple. Black eliminated both Pink and Blue with one tile, before winning the game by dealing with the only remaining competitor, Purple.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor zombiegod

With that over, there was just time for another of our favourite games of 2015, 6 Nimmt!. For a reason none of us understand, this mixture of barely controlled chaos is strangely compelling, so it is a game we keep coming back to again and again. Despite the number of times we’ve played it as a group, somehow Grey had missed out, so we had a quick summary of the rules: players simultaneously choose a card, then starting with the lowest value card the players take it in turns to add their card to the four rows on the table in ascending order. The player who adds a sixth card, instead takes the first five cards to score and the sixth becomes the first card in the new row. As well as the face value of the cards, they also have a number of bulls’ heads (Nimmts) mostly one or two, but some as many as five or even seven.

– Image by boardGOATS

The aim is to minimise the number of Nimmts picked up, so things went horribly wrong from the start, with everyone picking up plenty in the first round, though it remained close aside from Purple who picked up nearly twice what anyone else took. The second round was made especially difficult by the fact that three of the four rows were effectively out of commission. Blue struggled with four cards with a value below ten as well as the highest card in the deck. Purple managed to exceed her score in the first round, giving her a near record- breaking fifty-one. Grey and Burgundy both managed a clean sheet in the second round, so it was Burgundy’s better score of just seven, that gave him the win. So with 2016 started in fine style, we decided it was time for bed.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning outcome: Although seven is a difficult player count, there are some excellent games available when everyone is in the right mood.

31st December 2013

The evening started with a quick two player game of “extend the table and try to find space for it”. Just as we were finishing, one of our regulars arrived with his family, including his dinosaur-pyjama-clad four year old – unquestionably the youngest GOAT to date!

As planned, we started off with our “Feature Game”, the gorgeous, dexterity car-race, PitchCar. The idea of this game is that, starting with the player at the front of the field in each round, players take it in turns to flick their small wooden car round the custom-made circuit. Since the game was new to so many of the players, we started out with a simple track with just one jump (from the first expansion) and smooth corners (from the second expansion). Despite their tender years, Black and Yellow demonstrated a remarkable aptitude, and Black ran in the easy winner.

The first game was such a hit that when three more people arrived, we built a second, slightly more complex track while pizzas were “prepped”. In this game, Blue (played by one of the new arrivals), quickly got half a lap ahead and managed to maintain his lead until the end. This was followed by a game of “hunt for enough chairs” by which time, the first of the pizzas were ready. By this time, despite it being two hours past his bedtime, “dinoGOAT” was still keen to play on, however, we managed to persuade him (with the aid of a mince pie) that it was bedtime and we’d play Dinosaur Race another time.

That left us with just enough people to give the first of our “Christmas Games” an outing. Waldschattenspiel is not, as you might think, a game about what bears do in the woods. It is actually a really unusual game, played in the dark, where one player (the designated adult!) operates a candle and the others are little dwarf meeples with felt hats. The idea is that that wooden trees cast shadows, and the dwarves, who start the game hiding in the woods, have to meet up together behind the same tree. The snag is that when they move, they must do so without being illuminated by the candle. Any photophobic dwarves caught in the light become “frozen” and are unable to move until they are rescued by other dwarves. The dwarves started out badly when Green got trapped, and then frozen, very early on. The rest of the dwarves managed to meet up, but in a failure of strategy, tried to rescue Green as a group. When they all got trapped and only Red was able to escape, the writing was on the wall and the Candle scored a win on the next move.

Next up was the second of our Christmas Games, 7 Wonders. This is a card drafting game, where each person picks one card from their hand to play, then passes their remaining cards on to the next player. The aim of the game is to build your civilisation by developing your science and technology and building one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. We played the ‘A’ side and with seven players, most of whom had never played it before, there was a lot of chaos, and the game was a bit of a mystery to a lot of us. However, the game was won by one of the new players, who, as well as successfully building the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, also had a strong army and had a well developed civilisation.

A couple more players left and the rest of us played with the tower from Amerigo while we decided what the next game should be. Enticing though it was, it only played four, so, after much deliberation, we decided to play Dixit.

This is a clever, light card game, where the “active player” secretly chooses a card and uses a sound, word, phrase or sentence to describe it. The other players all choose the best card from their hand to match the sentence and secretly hand them to the active player who shuffles the cards and displays them to everyone. The players then try to guess which card was played by the active player with points being awarded for choosing correctly, having your card chosen by another player, and, as the active player, for being ambiguous enough to ensure that some players, but not all, chose their card. The artwork by Marie Cardouat is wonderfully surreal and the game produced some equally peculiar clues in what ended up as a close game. Blue took an early lead, but it couldn’t last and, everyone else closed, pausing for just a brief interlude to sing Auld Lang Syne and watch fireworks (it was raining, so we “wimped out” of setting off our own and just admired everyone else’s from the warm; one group were especially obliging and set off some very nice ones just outside the window!). White snuck ahead of Blue with the last point of the game, and took the first win of 2014 adding it to her last win of 2013. This was in contrast to Red who lost both the last game of 2013 and the first game of 2014!

Learning Outcome: Cold pizza isn’t that bad after all!