Thursday 8 October 2009

Hairy Snacks

The Crocker is on extended leave from NoBoG as he is taking a course learning to appreciate David Lynch. This leaves us free to usher in a new era. A new era where the winner is not a forgone conclusion and I get to push my perversely skewed perceptions of the evening on you unsuspecting readers.

Dave joined us this week. His first visit to the Ribs on a Tuesday found him pitted against myself and Student Luke in an effort to out-farm each other in 17th century Germany. I refer of course to Agricola. Proving to be an adaptable beast, this game works well anywhere on the scale between the printed 2 to 5 players - a rare thing with most games, which may claim to be good with a variable ranges of players, but usually have a sweet spot or are near damn unplayable at the extreme ends of the suggested player
range. Anyway, I embarrassingly finished with a model farm and strolled home to victory, mostly because neither of my opponents had played before and, as Rich pointed out, I'd supposedly cheated. Final scores: Me 43, Dave 20 and Luke 19. I'm sure that having got to grips with the system a re-run would see a much more competitive game. Anyway, new boy Dave enjoyed it and Luke didn't so much.

On the other table Jimmy brought along the new Eurogame poster boy, Endeavour - a game of world exploration and empire building. Players represent a European empire colonising the Mediterranean and shipping to all parts of the world to increase the empire's glory and status in Industry, Culture, Finance and Politics. It's a game of area control and variable player powers and from what I can gather garnered praise from all at the table. Ben, back from Indonesia, won.

As the lightweights wandered home to bed, the hardcore bought another round of drinks and scratchings and finished off the evening with a few hands of the Chinese card game Tichu. Jimmy and Luke hammered Dave and me with a series of good hands and a few surreptitious winks and nods.

This week I was mostly drinking Brew Dog's 77 Lager (4.9%). A hoppy, slightly malty, pilsner brewed in Scotland. It had a decent flavour with a slightly bitter after taste and I have been hard pressed to recognise it as a pilsner without seeing the label. Pretty good stuff. I'd rate it an 8 and equate it with Imperial as it's not quite what you're expecting, but still turns out be very good.

And finally our new feature where we highlight NoBoG's contribution towards Walsall's economic recovery by eating pork scratchings (or as the bags say; Pork Crackling). Scratching Count: Six bags were consumed by three members this week.

3 comments:

King Crocker said...

cool, I would have been happy playing either....well probably cola. Good to see we keep geeting fresh blood, this is of course essential as we constantly repel members.

Cheers Matt keep it up.

Luke Superior said...

The beer was probably Brains S.A. which actually stands for Skull Attack, not "special ale". I told the barmaid and she didn't seem to understand and left the beer list wrong and n00by.

I think it is pretty good and had a few pints, but then the 77 lager was barely drinkable and you seemed to like it.

Anonymous said...

Aha !! found my first appearence !! i have since purchased Agricola and still need to play again at some point !!!
Im also back on the wagon so need to get the beers in one day

Dave