There can only be one.....

... winner!  Sadly, as with all competitions of true value, there can only be one winner.  Yes, for those that have been interested - and I am under no delusions that this may actually only be Jason and I - the 10 game series has just finished and the old master has been declared the winner.  7-3

The student accepted the lesson graciously - whilst revenge plotting  was evident on his face, gracious comments to the victor abounded.

Actually, this was a lesson in what gaming is all about.  We both had a great deal of fun, the ante was "upped" with the publicising of the results, and ultimately the pitting of wits and friendly competition meant that we both focussed our endeavour on winning but making sure that the activity itself was thoroughly enjoyable.  It was. I look forward to the next series in about 3 weeks.  For this, I may just publish the results!

are you bored yet?

Tension mounts, well for me at least, interest wanes, for Jason. A massive 4 wins in a row has set me up for "2 match points".  All I have to do is win 1 or more of the next 2 games and victory will be mine.  Of course if I lose both, then on goal difference Jace wins.  I lose.



"In many ways you're both losers", anonymous

The Comeback kid

Having managed to squeeze in two more games yesteday, the score now stands at 3 all.  With an almost unassailable 60 points in goal difference - its all or nothing in the last few games of the series for Jimmy Mac!

What's that you're choking on Jace?  oh a piece of humble pie.....

Lessons from Mary Shelly

Two blogs in one day. There must be some drama. Well there is of sorts, for all us gaming types. I've coerced one of my colleagues to start playing board games, it may have been the bright shiny iPad (what still no product review?) version that drew him in but now he is in, well lets say he's hooked. After many games where the student has performed well and the patient but sage old master has coaxed and mentored him, and sufficient games were under the belt, the student declared its time to score - a true gamer at heart. This week we have set ourselves a challenge, play 10 games of Small World on the iPad and record the scores. In case of a draw we'll use point "goal" difference to declare the champ. Monday was a washout - too much work for both - yesterday saw us manage 2 games over lunch with a draw and Student up on goal difference. All fine so far. Today has been an humiliating defeat for the old master, 2 - 0 to the student. Faced with this stunning performance, the student was gracious, and courteous in victory and with self effacing humility reinforced the quality of the lessons he has received. Not. With taunting and jibing, and claims of "you're finished old timer", we have engaged in a little email debate. The scene is set, justice must be metered out, the universe must be brought back into balance. Game on for tomorrow :-)

Sent from my iPad

WotR CE - Game Review

This isn't really a review of the game it's my description of how the game played out against Will.  We have played WotR (and CE) a number of times now and Will is getting pretty good at handling the Shadow forces.  We decided to add in the expansion rules and pieces to see what effect it has.  This added Ents, Galadriel and Smeagol for me, the fellowship and Will, the Shadow, had the Dunlendings, the Balrog, Corsairs of Umbar and the Witch King: King of the Ring Wraiths at his disposal.

After our initial set up the first turn laid out some key strategic decisions for both of us.  Will mustered the Sauron Nation to war very quickly and this allowed me to bring in Galadriel.  I suspected an attack on Gondor so I had to get the fellowship moving, I would need some of the main characters in the South very soon.  Galadriel's abilities in the main make you more confident to progress the fellowship and they whipped along in the early part of the game.  In the first turn Will decided to bring in the Witch King - a decision that meant that the Balrog would be consigned to the later part of the game, if ever, showing that he favoured military might to hunting for the fellowship.  He now had a decision, was he going to bring him in as the Black Captain - to provide support and strength to his ground troops, or was he going to bring in the new King of the Ring Wraiths and concentrate on hunting for the Fellowship.  Yes, Will the warrior went for military might and brought in the Black captain and immediately started to threaten Gondor.

These few decisions set the course of the game.  Will specifically didn't bring in Saruman as he didn't want to invite an Ent attack, I was keeping 2 of the very powerful Ent strategy cards in my hand and so this action held me back early on in the game.   Will's main tactic was a massive and rapid attack on Gondor, via Minas Tirith and Lorien to remove Galadriel.  With the new siege engines and mustering to Lorien within a siege I managed to hold on to the elves but after a devastatingly played "Denethor's folly" Minas Tirith was in jeopardy.  Due to the rapid moving of the Fellowship, Gandalf the Grey managed to fly out of the fellowship and enter the besieged city but ultimately it fell and Gandalf was dead.  The sting taken out of this assault Will struggled to keep the momentum up and I halted his onslaught at Dol Amroth on the coast.  Most of Gondor was under Shadow control but I managed to get Strider and Gimli into Dol Amroth and Aragon was crowned King in time to devastate the Shadow forces.

With the remaining shadow forces sweeping from Minas Tirith across to Rohan (still not at war!) Aragorn tried a sneaky assault and went towards the coast around the mountains to come in to Rohan from the West.  Will saw this coming and decided to muster Saruman to build an Isengard force to support the Rohan assault.  Having stormed through the East of Rohan there was only Helms Deep and the fords of Isen left.  However, Gandalf the White appeared in Fangorn forest followed swiftly by the Ents who stormed out to Helms deep and destroyed most of the Sauron forces that were now besieged in the recently fallen Helms Deep.  The new Saruman force (weak because Will feared to muster as this brings in the Ents) tried to take Helms deep but was destroyed by Aragorn and Gimli with a large force of Gondor and Rohan units.

During this assault Will had started another army from the Southron and Easterlings to attack the Souther edge of Gondor with a view to sacking Dol Amroth.  I managed to take Aragorn through the mountains with the Army of the dead and routed the Southrons.

With all this battling going on the sneaksy Hobitses had managed to reach Minas Morgul and had proceeded, with Golum now their guide, to the edge of Mount Doom and destroyed the Ring.  During the battling Will had managed to get 8 VPs of the 10 needed to win and had seriously threatened the final 2.

Another great game of WotR CE and an enjoyable few hours with my son.

Grand National on Saturday

I’ve just picked us a horse each at random from a sweepstake for the Grand National on Saturday!

Will	Big Fella Thanks    (8-1)
Dad (Jim)	Vic Venturi   (20-1)
Mum (Anne)	Backstage (25-1)
Ellie	Eric’s Charm (40-1)

Prizes 1^st £24 , 2^nd £10,  3^rd £4 , 4^th £2

Good luck McD’s J

Christmas Games

In a previous blog I discussed my belief that playing games was both for the joy of playing and to try to win. I have recently commented on Stephen Conway's  facebook page (of the spiel) where he eloquently expresses his disquiet at a professional team that chose to loose, in front of a crowd of over 67 thousand fans, so as to rest their team for a bigger game - we get this in the UK too with premiership teams discussing etiquette for the squad that they should field for a league cup game.  We also saw a year when Renault bosses allegedly instructed Nelson Piquet to crash to allow Alonso to win the Singapore Grand Prix.  Its all cheating really

Surely games are "trial runs" of what we expect life to throw at us, a practice ground, if you like, and we are only cheating ourselves to bend the rules - excepting you need to make the game a gentler environment for newgamingfolk and kids.

I understand the motivation but when a (to remain nameless) family member declared about 1 hour into a game of formula de "put me where you like, I don't mind", to me, I felt a bit cheated.  I appreciate that there are non-competitative types but if you elect to be in the game, my view is you should at the very least, try to win.  The sibling rivalry that my brother and I adequately displayed left me feeling much more satisfied - despite the fact that I took too big a risk on the last corner and span off - it was a tense and enthralling challenge [and we managed to not fall out!].  let me assure you, the rivalry was fun, engaging and relatively good natured.  Actually, we all enjoyed the game even my Mum, oops I mean the nameless, non-competitative family member :-o declared it was her favourite game.

William witnessed this, actually he came in a close second, so maybe he can fly the family colours next year and knock Uncle Rob into second place.

Bread and Games

The picture is the card “Bread and Games” from La Citta. These two words encapsulate my two key decisions, bread – a symbol of nourishment and essential resource – do I need this? and games – a symbol of having fun – is it going to make my life fun? You can check many things against this simple binomial test. Beer can often start out in the “Bread” category and soon becomes the “Games” category.

I like to play games. Actually I like to enjoy life and this is achieved in part by playing games. A friend has a motto on his blog, which is itself a paraphrase of the Bernard Shaw quote, "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." I like this sentiment; that the very act of engaging in an apparently frivolous activity can indeed hold back the ravages of old age.

Recently I have had pause to consider what my motivations are for playing games. I listened to an excellent gaming podcast called Gameon -  Episode 28 – Motivations. I sympathized with much of the discussion about the challenging games with people who want to win at all costs, as we have all experienced this from time to time – I’d suggest possibly from both sides of the fence. At the end of one such discussion the guest host, single-L, said, “who even won that game?”.

I must confess, this resonated quite strongly with me. There have been occasions where the game became such a trial I could not recall who won. There have also been games that have been so much fun that I forgot who won. This leads me to believe that winning isn’t the objective. But clearly it is, you wouldn’t be a gamer if you didn’t want to win. In fact, I think Darwin had something to say about this too, so in a sense we are all the decedents of generations of winners.

Until researching for this blog – yes I did!, I had believed my old school motto was “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game”. Actually it now appears to be “Faith in our Future”,  something you’d expect the marketing department of Orange Mobile phones to come up with. Perhaps it was another school, it doesn’t matter, the sentiment I remember is that wining isn’t the objective, but acting in an exemplary manor regardless, is. Not confusing this with the liberal nonsense of, we can all be winners, actually I think this is the point. Victurus te saluto - He who is about to win salutes you, whatever happened to gracious victors?

If not the single-minded objective to win, then what else could the objective be?

Learning, I suspect is one. Experiencing real life concepts played out in a controlled and restricted rule set. From buying property, to the stock market, to balancing resources on a newly settled island, gaming can introduce these concepts in a friendly “risk free” environment. It goes further than this, as an adult, I have enjoyed diplomacy and negotiation or trading games that in someway approximate those interactions from real life – giving me an opportunity to hone my technique. Note-to-self – must try harder. Also, purely social interaction could be the aim – however I believe I’d just go to the pub if this were true. So is it something to do with intellectual stimulation? Probably, but really I think the only objectives are to try to win and to be gracious along the way, regardless of the outcome.

One final thought from Plato

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”