Burgundy was the first to arrive and he was quickly joined by Purple, Black and Lime.  As the first to arrive, together, they began to set up the “Feature Game“, the now traditional, car-racing game, PitchCar.  When Pine joined the party, discussion turned to the “Monster Games” session which featured Bus, Ecos: First Continent and the very silly Happy Salmon, all of which had been very enjoyable in their own way and most of which will come out again soon.  Before long, an exciting-looking racing track was set up around an obstacle course of snacks and drinks.

– Image by boardGOATS

As we’ve done a few times recently, instead of a circuit, we set up a single section track with separate start and finish lines.  This year we included the new Loop (which got it’s first outing at Pink’s sPecial Party in October) and Upsilon expansions as well as the bridge from the first expansion.  As usual, much fun was had by all concerned, especially with the new challenge that the Loop added.  There is clearly a knack with this: it is essential to hit the puck hard and in the middle, but some have the skill naturally, while others apparently just don’t.  Lime is one who clearly does, and as a result, his car traveled the furthest in the “flick-off”, so started at the front of the grid and finished way out in front too.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine, Pink and Purple, clearly don’t have the knack, and we never really found out about Burgundy either, as someone helped him largely avoid it, resulting in him to taking second place.  Elsewhere, having successfully escaped from the Loop, Black shot round the chicane and made the bridge look easy, inspiring Pink to comment that we always used to get stuck at the bridge, but now we have the Loop, the bridge is easy!  That said, stopping over the line without falling off the end of the track proved to be quite challenging.  So much so, that after half a dozen mini-flicks, Black was in danger of getting caught by Pine, who eventually made it round in fourth place.

– Image by boardGOATS

That just left Pink and Purple, taking it in turns to try to get round the Loop.  Eventually, Purple hit the sweet spot and started off towards the finish.  Unfortunately, after a superb single shot that took her round the ring, she ended up pointing in the wrong direction and tried to go  round the Loop backwards.  Pink meanwhile was still stuck and thanks to the way the track looped back on itself creating an intersection, managed to very effectively obstruct Purple in her quest to get to the end.

– Image by boardGOATS

As Purple’s and Pine’s antics entertained, everyone else consumed crudites, Devils on horsebacks, stuffed mini peppers, and large quantities of pigs in blankets (Lime commented that he now knew why JD Wetherspoon had a shortage).  When Purple and Pink finally crossed the line, it was time for supper – spicy vegetable chili, beef chili, rice and corn on the cob.  As people finished dinner we realised we’d forgotten the crackers and Christmas pressies. Unusually, this year there was desert too, so Black was given a special rolling-pin shaped knife to “cut” it, leaving everyone to wonder, before Pink delivered a Christmas pudding-shaped chocolate piñata.

– Image by boardGOATS

The “Pud” resisted all Black’s initial blows, until he decided a side-swipe might have more effect.  Eventually a dent became a crack and the crack became a hole revealing the sweets inside.  As everyone picked at the chocolate, we decided to start another game, Ca$h ‘n Guns, because there’s nothing better at Christmas than pointing foam guns at each other.  This is a very simple, but very fun party game where players are gangsters dividing up their loot by a sort of controlled Russian Roulette.

– Image by boardGOATS

Each player starts the round by loading their gun with one bullet from their deck of eight bullet cards, or “clip”.  Each bullet can be used only once during the game, and three are live, while the other five are blanks.  Once everyone has chosen their bullet card, the Godfather counts to three and everyone points their weapon at someone.  The Godfather can then use his privilege to ask one player to point their gun away from him (there was some discussion as to whether a real gangster would use “please”), then there is a second count of three.  This time, players can back out, which means they won’t get shot, but they also won’t get any loot.

– Image by boardGOATS

All the remaining players then reveal their bullet cards and anyone who is shot picks up a plaster and also won’t get any loot at the end of the round.  This leaves a hard-core of gangsters to take it in turns to collect cards from the loot pool that was revealed at the start of the round.  In each round, all the loot cards are taken, so when it is a particularly brutal round, players can take several cards.  The loot includes diamonds, artworks and cash, as well as the occasional medipack or additional bullet and the opportunity to become the Godfather.  Unusually, this final option was taken several times so the Godfather changed hands quite frequently, with Burgundy, Pink, Lime, Blue, and Pine all taking the role at some point.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue was Boris, so Pink suggested that she should be the target.  This is fairly usual in this game, so Blue rarely wins.  However, it seems people didn’t like being told what to do by Pink, even if he was the Godfather, so remarkably, she survived the first round.  After a couple more rounds she’d still only picked up one plaster, while Pine, had acquired two so a third would put him out of the game.  As he had pointed out at the start, an injury tends to make you a target, but somehow, Pine managed to get himself a medipack.  Burgundy and Purple, however, were not so lucky and bought it in round six.

– Image by boardGOATS

Going into the final round, Black commented on how many painting cards Blue had picked up—the first is worth $4,000, but these score an ever increasing amount so a player with ten scores $500,000.  At that point, Blue didn’t feel she had enough, but as Pine’s final bullet proved to be a blank, she was able to stay in for the final round and pick up a couple more.  It surprised even her when she counted up and found she had seven paintings giving a total of $250,000 when her cash was added in.  Black took the $60,000 bonus for the most diamonds and with it, second place with $133,000, and not a scratch, just ahead of Pink ($110,000) who was also unharmed.

– Image by boardGOATS

With midnight fast approaching, we replaced the guns with glasses to toast the New Year and watch the fireworks (in both London and the village).  And then we had the very important decision to make: what to play for the first game of 2020.  In the end,  we decided to go for our old favourite, 6 Nimmt!.  Everyone knows how to play this by now:  players simultaneously choose a card from their hand and then, starting with the player that revealed the lowest value card, players add their cards to one of the four rows.  The player who adds the sixth card to a row, instead takes the first five into his scoring pile, where the number of bulls’ heads indicates the score.  The winner is the player with the fewest “nimmts”.

– Image by boardGOATS

We played with our usual variant where a game takes two rounds, each played with one half of the deck.  In the first round, Pine top-scored with twenty-two closely followed by Lime with eighteen, while Pink kept a clean sheet and Purple remarkably (especially for her), had only the one card with just a single “nimmt”.  So, going into the second half, it was all to play for.  As is usually the case, those that do well in the first round typically do badly in the second.  That was exactly the way it panned out for Pink who picked up the most “nimmts” in the second round with twenty-five, almost catching up with Pine and Lime.  Purple, however, managed to buck the trend, and pulled out a clear round giving her a final total of just one and with it, clear victory—the first of the new year.

– Image by boardGOATS

Lime suggested a second game, and as the only other game being suggested was Bohnanza, apathy from everyone else meant we played 6 Nimmt! again.  Again, Pink ended the first round with “zip”, followed by Black and Burgundy with five; again Pine had the highest score of twenty-four.  Also again, Pink failed in the second round, taking more than anyone else and finishing with a total of twenty.  Blue managed a zero in the second round, but had picked up too many points in the first to do better than second place.  It was consistency that won the game though, and Burgundy, the only one to say in single figures for both rounds, finished with thirteen and took first place.

– Image by boardGOATS

By this time was well gone 1am, and there was some chatter before Lime decided that it was past his bedtime and left everyone else to it.  With six, there were slightly more options, and when Pink appeared with For Sale, nobody objected.  This is an older game, that we haven’t played in the group since it was the “Feature Game” nearly seven years ago, but it is a bit of an “ever-green” game that still pops up on recommendation lists from time to time.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is very simple: players buy properties in the first part of the game and then sell them in the second half, and the player who has the most money at the end wins.  Buying properties is through auction.  Players start with $14,000 to last the whole game and take it in turns to bid for one of the property cards available on the table.  These have a nominal rating of one to thirty with fantastic pictures that reflect their value.  In each round, the bidding is continuous with players either increasing the bid by at least $1,000 or passing.  When a player passes, they take the lowest value property card and pay half their bid.  Thus, the winning player gets the highest value card, but has to pay the full amount bid.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the second part of the game, cheque cards with a value of $2,000 to $15,000 (or void) are revealed and players simultaneously select a card to play and then reveal.  The property card with the lowest numerical value takes the cheque with the smallest value.  This time, the property cards came out in bunches so it was mostly a case of players trying to avoid getting the real rubbish, and some inevitably failing.  It was such a long time since we had played the game, that it took a couple of rounds for players to really get the feel of valuing the properties and the best way to bid, by which time, in some cases, the damage had already been done.

– Image by boardGOATS

It also took a round or two to get the hang of selling properties as we weren’t sure exactly how the money on the cheques was distributed.  In addition, the cheques came out with low values first, then high values and finally, both voids in the last round.  This meant that although Blue took the maximum return for her Space Station, she didn’t take out any of the other high value buildings.  It also meant that Burgundy and Pink got saddled with the voids in the final round.

– Image by boardGOATS

Despite this, it was a very close game.  In the final accounting, Black won with a total of $50,000, just ahead of Burgundy in second with $47,000, the void possibly making all the difference.  By this time, it was gone 2am and although nobody was keen to leave, it was definitely pumpkin-o’clock.  So everyone headed home to bed for the first time in 2020.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome:  Thick chocolate is surprisingly hard to break.