'Ra' by Reiner Knitzia - 29/06/00
Greg Norman ( courtesy of a sales promo stand at some exhibition up town ) very kindly gave Spiller a video golfing work over. The White Shark eulogised over Spiller's body position despite Spiller wearing a waistcoat and having a pole up his bum. Great! Excellent! etc. and at each epithet Spiller beamed with pleasure. Triangles appearing on 'The Shark' bore passing resemblance to those imposed on Spiller and we could all see where improvements could be made in our own game. Mr. Norman's hat was received coldly.
Dicken's fantasy Cricket team has earned him the coveted Manager of the Month award and the even more coveted (currently with-held) £5 prize. Details of his eleven are of little interest, suffice to say it contains Andy Caddick and Stewart Law (yawn!). Kendall's team came second, and would have done better but for Matthew Harden scoring -8 points, and things are getting worse.
Tonight's games started with Ra by Reiner Knitzia. This was a second helping, having got to grips with it last week. Its Dicken's birthday present from Kendall, Spiller and Phil, so it has already enjoyed mild carping with oblique references to shelf price. For those of you who don't know, it's a game set in Egypt which leaves you feeling lightly tanned with sand between the toes. Spiller sported an open-necked shirt and left the window ajar.
Herr Knitzia is good at re-vamping game formats and I reckon this is his re-incarnation of a basic auction game - 'Extra Blatt' springs to mind - for no particular reason. Lots of decisions to make, with only a couple of things to do in your turn.
Dicken opened with the First Cataract defence and proceeded to put his trust in the waters of the Nile. Spiller took to building Monuments and Kendall eschewed the importance of Civilisation and a healthy set of Pharaohs. Gold and God tokens were greedily snaffled up in the assurance that these were always a good thing .
Kendall's favoured "I-haven't-a-clue-what-I'm-doing" ploy was all the more creditable given that he clearly didn't have a clue. Meanwhile Dicken and Spiller evinced sanguine confidence in themselves, the game, calling upon 'Ra' , Pringles, lager and any chestnuts of wisdom thrown up in conversation. (No-one, as it happened mentioned the rites of passage of the pharaohs, perhaps next time).
At the end of round (epoch?) three the game ends with one of Herr Kitzia's ritualistic counting up of points. Strangely, in this game no-one seems able to gauge just who is winning, so it came as no great surprise when Kendall pipped home from Spiller on the 'Most Suns' tie break. Satisfying, as always ........."Wait till I tell Phil !"
We finished off with a few rounds of 'Lost Cities' where Dicken's legendary luck exhibited itself extravagantly, much to the dismay of Spiller and Kendall.
A good night was had by all. Hic !
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'Ra' by Reiner Knitzia
Kendall has been trying to organise his 'friend' Phil to get along for another Games Night. This Phil is not to be confused with THE Phil, but invariably this does cause confusion. Probably just as well then that Phil the 'friend' has ducked the chance now and for the foreseeable future. It wasn't looking too good when he was 'too tired' and when he was in panto. Kendall's suggestion that six months notice could be arranged, was countered by Phil saying he'd give Kendall a ring - if he fancied it.
Regular gamers are few and far between. Phil looked a good bet when his wife mentioned he designed games. What better than to invite him along with a view to blowing his mind with the power some of Germany's best. 'Aladdin's Dragons' seemed a good choice and to be fair Phil picked it up quite well. Spiller, and Dicken duly slaughtered him, but Kendall had the grace to come in a whinging last place - Dicken triumphed magnificently much to Spiller's chagrin - ed. Ah, well..
Dicken has been more successful. A last minute call to Paul and Liz has found them at home having a day off together to decorate their kitchen. How charming! They were easily persuaded to down tools to make up a five-player game and arrive bearing gifts of Cheese Snaps and curry flavour Twiglets. Tasting the latter is immediately proffered as a 'Ragnar challenge'.
Spiller arrives even later than Paul and Liz. He bemoans not knowing of their invitation - he could have ponced a lift. Not withstanding the time, Spiller embarks on a long rambling internet joke, the ending of which is, '.And for my third wish, I asked for a head as big as a water-melon'. So bad is this, that Liz feels emboldened to tell a joke. Everyone's heard it before, but only Spiller can recall the punch-line. It's better than Spiller's, but if it's told again no-one (except Spiller) will remember it.
Kendall is anxious to start the game and suggests plunging into it after the briefest of rule explanations. Dicken agrees and then trawls through every detail before letting Liz loose on her first turn. Spiller makes a few suggestions as to what she could do. Kendall points out that she has a basic choice of two, one of which doesn't apply on turn one. So, Liz draws a tile from the bag.
There is still a problem with the bag. It never stays in one place. Kendall explains that he has to pick it up, otherwise he can see into it. His eyes are inexplicably drawn to Ra tiles and he can't bring himself to choose under such pressure.
Liz places her tile on the track. Play moves on. Paul struggles with taking a tile or invoking Ra. He invokes Ra. Just two tiles on the track, but Spiller senses the need to make hay. After all there are five players with three Sun tokens each and only 10 Ra to be drawn per Epoch. He cashes in a 3 Sun token and sets a trend. No more than four tiles get drawn before someone panics and invokes Ra. When Ra is drawn, Paul gets carried away and cashes in a 6 sun token when there are no tiles up for grabs (and only a 9 sun token in the middle).
The Twiglets are proving more popular than expected - Dicken, however has declared them an abomination on the face of the earth. You can't please everybody - ed.
Kendall has two Sun tokens, Paul has one. Everyone else is spent. Spiller was spent before the Twiglets proved popular. There are still five Ra to be drawn. Kendall cashes in a 10 sun for 6 tiles, Paul gets as many for a 12 sun. Still five Ra to draw. Kendall fills up the tiles, collecting 8 beauties for a princely 2 Sun. ''Game-over,''declares Spiller. "Right, shall we start properly now?" Ha Ha!
After the drought of Epoch 1 it fairly pours Ra tiles in Epoch 2. Only Dicken makes a decent fist of it, ending the Epoch with 9 points worth of Nile / Flood.
In Epoch 3 the bidding has settled down, Paul and Liz having found their feet. At its best, Ra provides a teasing choice on at least 50% of player turns. For Paul and Liz it's a teasing choice on 100% of their turns. But it's well worth having them along. The game plays much better with five players and Spiller, Kendall and Dicken enjoy the discipline of trying (failing) not to interfere. Besides which they are very nice people.
The crunch moment comes when Kendall bids his big 16 Sun to snaffle four tiles including two Floods. Dicken is denied and Kendall romps home with 50 points. Dicken has 42. The other scores are very poor - Spiller barely makes a profit. Admirably, he blames himself and advises Paul and Liz that they were fools to listen to him.
Kendall reports on a colleague who voted in the 'Pop Idol' final. 7 phone calls for Will and 3 for Gareth. Then, feeling sorry for Gareth, phoned four more times to make them even. Now, you'd not catch a Ragnar doing that!
Paul and Liz remind us that they haven't been invited over since before Christmas. They hint at the possibility of hosting a Games Night. They must enjoy it after all.
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'Ra' by Reiner Knizia
Games night 12/01/05
The venue is Dicken's home and the starter game is 'Ra' by Reiner Knizia, a game we haven't played for some considerable time. Kendall and Spiller arrive within minutes of each other and conversation turns to Spiller's house hunting exploits. Spiller is on the move in the very near future and probably away from the South East England area. This spells disaster for the weekly gaming nights as we are frequently a threesome and twosomes for gaming are generally not as interesting, socially speaking. Dicken and Kendall embark on a hasty appraisal of gaming 'guests' who could be invited over on a more regular footing and there seem to be enough to keep us going, as long as they can be persuaded that regular gaming with the Ragnars is just what their social calendar has been lacking!
The main change we make is that we place all the tokens into a bag, from whence they are drawn instead of distributing them around the board edge (an act which takes up an area the size of the now defunct county of Rutland).
Dicken as the elder statesman of this gathering is given first play and he proceeds to draw a 'Ra' token, immediately throwing Spiller and Kendall into a fugue state over how this is going to ruin the game if this keeps happening. A little hysterical is Dicken's assessment of their reaction given that it's the first draw of the game for God's sake! Anyway, unsurprisingly no one wants to bid for the puny '1' value sun token that is on offer and off Spiller goes. Hey! What do you know he also draws a 'Ra' token and Kendall is now composing a funeral elegy for the game. You can probably see what's going to happen next and like all good Laurel and Hardy films the fun is in the anticipation of the obvious. Yes, Kendall draws a 'Ra' token and collapses onto the floor speaking in tongues.
Kendall is revived with strong spirits, well beer and hearty food, well Pringles and the game continues with the drawing of some non 'Ra' tokens. The bidding begins after five are drawn, with Spiller calling for an auction. Dicken sets his stall out by bidding too high for the cautious couple and acquires several fertile lands and a flood token. This to set a trend. Auctions progress with Spiller consistently calling them after five or six tokens are drawn - is he following some plan like a crazed gambler convinced that he can beat the system in the casino? Who knows? But his play is clearly based around the idea that one shouldn't let too many tokens out of the bag at any one time. Kendall on the other hand is miserly with his auction calling and bidding. Preferring to wait it out until he is the only player who can bid and hoping for the full quota of tokens to come out. As you may know this is a risky option given that 'destructive' tokens may appear that you are either forced to accept as part of the auctioned 'lot' or clear out and start again. However, Kendall seems happy with his large haul of 'building' tokens and Dicken keeps quiet about his mounting collection of fertile lands.
'Ra' is a relatively quick game but one in which the cleverness and smooth working of the game mechanics is very apparent. All three concur on this as play progresses through the second and final rounds. By the mid point in the final round Spiller is eyeing Kendall's decent collection of various buildings, trying to calculate their worth in between turns and Kendall tries to spread some propaganda about the awesomely valuable fertile lands of Dicken. In other words the usual 'I'm not winning, he is' tactics that Ragnars have perfected over the years.
Dicken makes a couple of bids to ensure that he will win the 'highest value of Sun tokens' aspect of the scoring round and also adds to his floods and fertile lands tally. Spiller is bemoaning his earlier play and setting himself for last place. Kendall is quiet and pensive, the sign of a man not sure whether he's done enough.
Sure enough Dicken edges out Kendall, with Spiller blaming that 'one stupid play' for his poor finish. Still, it is lauded as a first class game by all and one that actually has a tangible feel of the Egyptian theme as you play - not something you can say about all of Reiner's games.
Next up is 'Bridge'. Carol is tempted from the frigid delights of the computer and persuaded to play a few hands of Bridge, a game the Ragnars were fond of in times gone by, when they frequented public houses. Pre-children of course. Steve and Carol make a good start with three spades, but underbid by one, then make two diamonds exactly - a good tough hand. This is followed though by Dicken and Spiller bidding and making five diamonds - a very pleasurable hand to make and it serves to end the evening on a good note.
Talk concludes with details of the forthcoming 'bash' in Derbyshire. Yes it's back to the high intensity games lab atmosphere that sees Ragnars and friends submit themselves to prolonged endurance training for gaming, broken only by copious quantities of specially prepared energy drinks, known by some uninitiated civilians as beer. Oh the things we do for Science!
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