Last night was the fortnightly club night.

I took a bag of games on the lighter side. Amongst them was the recently arrived English edition of Strike! from the US Amazon store. This was a replacement for the european language version I had and was unable to find at home.

It’s the usual story for me. I’m unable to find something. Spend ages looking for it. Then over the following days the thought about it just naws away in my mind. Forcing me to keep looking at the oddest moments. Eventually to stop this driving me mad I have to order a replacement.

Then after the replacement item has been dispatched and can’t be sent back. Magically the missing item turns up in precisely where I’d been looking for it. This is how I’ve ended up with three copies of Knizia’s dice games book.

It was as I was leaving last night that the european version of Strike! turned up.

So now I have two copies. Not a total disaster. I could run a mini Strike! tournament at a future club night.

With only five of us able to make it. Or to put it another way. Only five of us with no social life outside playing games for this time of year could make it.

Yes the whole American Halloween fixation and traditional fireworks means a lot of folks have social commitments this time of year. So having five of us able to make it was a miracle in itself.

We started off playing Castle Combo. A frustrating experience at times. Some of which I’m sure was expert level trolling. Some of which was just annoying analysis paralysis. But still it’s a fun game. Despite Dave’s coin strategy, Marcin won with having a lot of keys.

Our next game saw Strike! getting to the table for the first time.

Strike! has been a thing for the Rolling Dice Taking Names guys for a few years now. Marty and Tony are split on their opinion on it. Is it dice in a bowl or gladiators in an arena? So to decide who is right they hold a yearly contest with listeners of the podcast split into two teams representing the opposing viewpoints at Gen-Con. The winning team means Strike! has to be referred to the opinion they represent for the year.

The reason I wanted to own and play it was as part of the research for my game idea. That is on the back boiler but not forgotten.

We had a blast playing Strike! In the end we played five games of it. There was laughing, banter, incredible dice rolls. For such a “simple” game of just throwing dice into a bowl it was so much fun and addictive.

Our final game of the evening was Sushi Go which saw Anthony win this card drafting, set collection game.

Another fun club night.