Two games, one lunchtime

Yesterday lunchtime was a blast of gaming! Two of us had three quarters of a lunchtime to play. Out came Stratego slapped it down and played through a very quick game. I lost, but feel I can blame that not on tactics but on the third person watching.

Mr Third person is not a gamer he just wanted a break from his desk so wandered over and watched and asked a few questions. This is where I became doomed to be a loser. He started asking questions while chomping on his pasty. “What’s the number one called?” he asked, and I told him. Then “What do bombs do?”, with a gesture of a chin to my right side of the board. I wasn’t too worried at this point I usually spread out the bombs. I told him what bombs do. Then it happened. “What does a flag mean?”, again with the chin gesture to the right side of the board. I told him, with a saddening heart. When we play this game, it’s all about bluff and watching the opponents eyes. You know hovering your hand over a bomb or even the flag as if your about to move it, and looking for a slight cringe in the eyes as you attack a piece near the flag. So I know full well my mighty opponent hadn’t missed the gesture. I said nothing.

Suddenly all of the attacks came down the right side and I knew it was all over, but I carried on. There was no point trying to cover the flag as that would really just confirm its location, so I launched an attack down the left. Alas it was a forgone conclusion. Two scouts and one bomb later my flag was defeated.

Then we rushed onto a two player basic game of Carcassonne at hyper speed. In the end we only overran lunchtime by a couple of minutes and it was worth it, as I could end the session with a win. Mr Third stuck around, and tried to make sense of the game while we played. I could see him getting confused as we scored cities and so on. My opponent is an expert on joining his farmers into my fields so I was wary of that and got two farmers into my main field as soon as possible as an attempt to put-him-off, as he’d have to put three in there to take it away. This actually seemed to work for me so I might well try this again in future. I cant put too much hope in that tactic though because the terrain ended up dividing into two major farming areas with a major road network in the centre.

A good lunch time, a loss and a win, and as a bonus, we managed to show a non gamer that we don’t go-off-and-play-dollies at lunchtimes.