Back to ACWest–now moved out of the Ramada and into the Telford International Centre down the road. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

We were sharing the event with "English Gymnastics". I think the security staff did a very good job of keeping straight faces as they found it blindingly obvious who coming in should go to which event…

Friday

We started with what's rapidly become my standard filler game, Sea Salt & Paper. (I showed this off to two people this weekend, both of whom immediately bought copies.)

On to my Essen-purchased copy of Rock Hard: 1977, still great fun on my second play. We did a bit more with the after-hours hangouts this time, and all of us broke 50 points by the end of the game.

Then Imperium: I log all my plays of this as Horizons now, but actually this was using a friend's copy of Classics and Legends, with commons cards from the latter. Note the Great Beetle that devours the world every Solstice, only to see it reborn.

New Essen purchase Landmarks, and each of us had a go at clue-giving. Turns out it's Quite Hard on a first try.

And then Deadly Dowagers, another recent acquisition that's become a favourite. (I've mostly so far played with two; with three it was much harder to plan what I was going to do.)

To finish the evening, several matches of Kabuto Sumo, which seems at its best with three: where 2 and 4 player games can get long because there's basically a single axis of attack and everyone goes back and forth, with three it's all a bit more unbalanced.

Saturday

Knowing it was likely to be a long game, we started the day with Xia: Legends of a Drift System, and acquired a new player just as we were starting. (New rule: maximum 5 players, but each new or slow player counts as 2 for this purpose.) I did all right, but another player managed to score the winning fame point with a roll of 20 just as they were about to score it from something else anyway. Style.

On to more Sea Salt & Paper, with four players, and then Tinderblox Sunset.

We moved over to the other site—we had the convention centre rooms in the day, but the hotel in the evening—and tried Letter Jam, one that I haven't played for a while and had to re-learn from the not entirely clear manual. (I've now added one of my own to Roger's Rules). I'm sure I used to be vaguely competent at this, too.

Then four-player Imperium which I fear dragged a bit for the new player. I played the Arthurians again, having done profoundly badly with them at Stabcon, and managed to pull off a win by concentrating on their own internal mini-game and nearly ignoring the commons.

Finally this month's challenge of Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition: Ra, Nightmist and Wraith versus Apex in Freedom Tower. We started by knocking down the subordinate werewolves, but after a couple of rounds switched to whaling on Apex himself, which worked rather better.

Sunday

Having been a bit disappointed with the 2-player Gladius at Tabletop Scotland, we tried it again at three, and had much more fun. All right, there isn't a huge amount of depth, but it's good chaotic fun, especially when Dave comes out.

Then on to Illimat, first outing of my new rulebook, which seemed to work well. The "groups" and "stacks" terminology used on BGG really does make sense of the Stockpile rule at long last.

Sea Salt & Paper, the first game ever played with one of the newly-purchased copies. Things were going quite well, though I was in last place when a round ended and the player went for a Last Chance… upon which I drew a mermaid to add to the three I already had, causing an instant win.

Finally before the drive home, Coldwater Crown, which we'd played a few days ago when very tired. This time we made a bit more sense of it.