The Ragnar Bash - Staffordshire 2005
Episode one ( The Branston menace, sorry pickle)
Dicken, Spiller and Kendall roll up at ye olde farm house at around 8.00 pm. The place looks deserted, but the door is open. Hesitant cries of 'Are you locals?' brings null response, but then a muttering is heard from the living room followed by the appearance of Ian and Roger. They've been here a couple of hours and are already punch drunk from a couple of head to head games.
Without much further ado the contingent have a nice cup of tea. Age shall not weary them, but they will get the peculiar habits of the elderly. Then it's all aboard for 'Ticket to Ride', a new game for Roger and Ian. At some point in all this Richard has arrived - in fact I suspect he was there all the time and I've just forgotten the exact timing of events. Probably he was also playing 'Ticket to Ride' with Ian cooking something (as he is apt to do). Whatever, time ticks along quite nicely, with just a growing sense of anxiety about the lateness of Phil and Steve Slade. After all, they live considerably closer than the Southern contingent and know the route from last year.
An American rail network slowly takes shape. Phil and Steve arrive. They'd forgotten a map book and have done a tour of most of Derbyshire. America has to wait. Traditional greetings all round and more talk of cups of tea - but, clear off and get your own, we're busy.
Locomotives get moving again and then 'whoosh!' Kendall knocks over a full glass of beer and all the little plastic coaches go floating away. Spiller turns a ghostly shade of pale - it's his game. Kendall mops up.
The natural intermission gives chance to take stock. There are eight Ragnars at this year's bash and all are now assembled. Sleeping arrangements have been determined, somewhat based upon Richard's 'bad night' of last year. Spiller has been allocated the downstairs room away from the danger. The Kendall's, Dicken and Steve Slade have drawn the short straws and are to sleep in the bunk room together.
Spiller suggest playing his music quiz, which sounds jolly and comfortable (it can be played in the living room instead of the kitchen). Roger, Dicken and Kendall make up one team, with the others in a team of four. Spiller is quiz-master and sits poised over the CD player - although it isn't needed for the first half hour. Classic questions include; 'Name all 19 Beatle number ones' and 'Name all 19 Elvis number ones'. When the CD finally gets underway the teams are staggered to have to name songs and artists from the 1950's after listening to 10 seconds of song introductions. 'Is that Peggy Lee?
Papers are marked and scores added up. A close win for the threesome, Dicken is in awesome form. Special thanks to Roger who recalled one Beatles' number one. Well done Spiller
Not yet midnight, so no-one has turned into a mouse. Just time for 'Peanuts'. This is a good 6 player game, which has been modified to eight player. Lots of foolish gambling surrounding dice-rolling - sounds like 'Viking Fury'. Initial sensible play gradually gives way to extraordinary risk-taking as players realise the do-or-die nature of the game. Spiller it is who finally over-cooks and the game ends. A quick count up of what's left of the money and Kendall is found to have squeezed past Roger for a second 'win' of the evening.
And so to bed.
Despite a night punctuated by elephantine snoring, the Ragnars are up and active by 8.00 a.m. Ian concocts a breakfast which includes that Northern delicacy, sausage sandwiches with brown sauce. Yum! Yum! And so to battle.
Phil has worked manfully to produce not one, but ten copies of his latest game idea. Each player receives a plastic bag full of bits and pieces. These are summarily dumped on the table and sorted in a variety of different ways... And that's about as much as can be said at this juncture. Game ideas are Top Secret at this stage, so let's leave the Ragnars to play their game on their own, for a little while.
11.00 a.m. and all done. The general verdict seems to be 'very promising', although Roger's assessment is less flattering - you can't please everybody.
Coffees begin to give way to beers. Time for the next set of games. Spiller, Dicken, Ian and Roger plough into 'St Petersburg' on half of the table, whilst at the other end Kendall, Phil, Steve Slade and Richard immerse themselves in Kendall's new game project.
Well, that means another half of a gaming session that can't be divulged.
'St Petersburg' is already established as a favourite with the SouthernRagnars and the Northerners are equally impressed. Some comparisons with 'Puerto Rico' are made, the feeling being that this game betters that excellent game in several areas. Dicken wins and is very happy - the losers are not so cheery ('PR' also generates this response - spooky!).
Roger looks at the rules to discover an error in our play to date, but a subsequent playing reveals this to be of only minor importance.
Kendall's game meanders to a conclusion. Richard and Steve are still uncomfortable with the rules. It works, but the verdict at this juncture is, 'Not a Ragnar game'.
Lunchtime beckons and Ian is already hovering over some giant pizzas
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The Ragnar Bash - Staffordshire 2005
Episode two ( A prat on the phone)
Somewhat fatigued after a hard morning's gaming, the Ragnar' adjourn for a splendid lunch of chilli and baked potatoes, courtesy of Morton, and a barrage of disparaging remarks about Arsenal's credibility as a top-notch football team.
Next up, it's Morton again, this time with his Pirates of theCaribbean game. The sides split again into the north - featuring the fearless elder Kendall, Slade, Roger and Morton as a roguish gang of said pirates - taking on the dastardly south (Dicken, Spiller, Kendall the Younger and Richard) in their nice battleships and White Ensigns. The system is a simple mix of the Pirate game (which supplies the superb ship models) and Blue Max (a gallant contender from last year, which didn't quite stand the twenty years since being invented).
The game bowls along very heartily. Roger is Grand Admiral of the Skull and Crossbones, and makes for a very nice target for Kendall and Slade. All he has to do is decide which pirate will go when in the turn order. Kendall is appalled that he makes even the slightest miscalculation, as a consequence of which Kendall gets severely raked by Spiller's floating fortress of a battleship ("surely you must have known I needed to go last - isn't it obvious?" - it probably isn't, but this is a Ragnar bash and everyone is fair game).
Come 4.30 and the pirates have been well and truly thrashed around the Gulf. Roger's ship still looks good, but then as his fellow privateers are only keen to point out, he has drifted around the edges of the battle like a craven dog (he does this in Blue Max as well, so it's not a huge surprise to anyone). Good game, though. The general view is that the scenario needs more tweaking, but makes for a very good laid-back chiller for the afternoon. And then it's back to the sport, to sneer at England's continuing love-hate relationship with the game of rugby.
Twenty minutes of said 'sport' is enough for the more hardcore Ragnars. There is a couple of hours until pub time, so its off to northern Russia for a bash at St Petersburg.
The rules are straightforward enough. Buy from a rich assortment of buildings and jobs in order to accumulate Victory Points. Jobs generally provide either money (needed for buying things) or Victory Points (needed for winning). A series of rounds provide a selection of different types of card. Basically, you buy what you think will be most useful but try to keep enough back to pick up anything juicy that comes up later. A little bit of a gambling game, a little bit stock market-ish, a little bit Puerto Rico-ish. Simple enough, fast enough. Nice game.
The Elder Kendall in his first outing at the game, chooses to ignore the fact that the key to the game is Victory Points and opts, instead, for a massed money making strategy. This is successful in that he does make lots of money. However, although you need to have enough money in the game, it still isn't enough on its own to win it. A rather sluggish third place results; the balanced approach seems to pay more dividends. And - of course - being the southern Ragnars, it emerges that a major rule has been played wrong. Nothing new there, though.
And so its off down the road to the pub for a very pleasant meal, much conversation and a group impersonation of the grumpy old men. Back up the hill for the old favourite - Dalmouti- and a rather early finish of just after midnight. Stamina reserves will be needed for the morrow.
Sunday morning and, fed and watered (actually, strongly-coffeed) the party splits into two. At the far end of the table, a revisit to St Petersburg is under way. At this end of the table though, it's reforge the sword that was broken, get out the foot shampoo and start whistling for Shadowfax: it's off to The War of the Ring.
The reasons for playing are many and varied. Phil Kendall owns the game and feels duty bound to show off its sterling qualities (he's even painted the bases so you can tell the different nations apart - please note that he hasn't painted the actually figures - that would be very dodgy now that he's a boardgamer); Dicken and Steve Kendall have their eyes on a potential borrow into the deep south, whilst Ian, as a Lord of the Rings card game stalwart, has well and truly served his time.
An interesting game ensues. It's strong points are the look of the thing - the board and the figures just look so . . .epic (sorry Epic!!!!), whilst the cards provide a never ending set of combinations. This game sees a massed assault on Minas Tirith carrying the day, but then a splendid sequence of Good cards - Boromir rallying the troops of Gondor, the Eagles seeing off the Nazgul air cover and a major offensive driving away the Evil Ones results in the Tower of the White Tree being retaken. Splendidly atmospheric!!! The downside to the game is that there's an awful lot to get your head around - the beauty of the card combinations means that there's also a lot that you've got to be aware of, nor is this remotely playable as a typical evening's game. The Ragnar's are a hardy group, but the four hours that a normal game requires is perhaps too much of a good thing.
Down the other end of the table, St Petersburg having proved fairly successful (there seems to be general bewilderment as to whether they could have stopped Spiller winning) they have moved on to a return to Ticket to Ride.
The four dark riders meanwhile decide to have a second run at thefast developing latest Ragnar design. This is when the Ragnar weekend really begins to deliver. Everyone has an opinion on the first outing of the game, and a great deal of discussion ensues before it even begins. The result is a lot of altered rules, and the new version is altogether tighter and more like the real thing. Dicken and Morton hammer out an epic battle which goes right down to the wire; the younger Kendall's troops gleefully slaughters the older Kendall's, but neither is too downhearted. Not too much detail can be given out at the moment as the finished article is still a few months off being ready for production, but as soon as details are ironed out news will appear on the Ragnar Home page.
And that's just about it. Lunch is consumed with relish (and Pringles), manly forearms are gripped in Ragnar farewells, a sort of inheritance battle takes place over who is going to not take various items of food ("oh, go on then . . . I'll have the malt loaf then, if you take the half-finished box of corn flakes"), and then it's off back to whither they came.
FOOTNOTE: Slade at this point decides that he'll still not bother with a road map. The journey down took two hours ("using map books - opinion is divided. Everyone else uses a mapbook - I don't"). In the sort of sequence beloved of Carry On films, Slade eventually condescends to borrow Richard's mapbook (following, as chance would have it, in the car behind) whilst sitting in a pub car park somewhere in central Derbyshire ( the right County at last - ed.), quite close to the Blue John mines and nowhere near the route back to Yorkshire. Kendall armed with said map is in his element. The two hour journey (and this is the fourth time the journey has been journeyed) should take about ninety minutes. Now there's a thought for next year.
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