The BBQ Party (official report)

It's a BBQ, right? It's a party for a few friends... well, almost.

Imagine inviting about 20 good friends (and their partners, etc), only one or two of whom you have ever actually met, to come round and have a BBQ and play a few games. The excuse being that you've been playing a crazy game for a year. A recipe for disaster. The place is too small for that many people, there aren't enough chairs, and table space is limited. Better attendance might have been achieved if they had known it was to be the "official" UK pre-WTC Training Camp.

Rick (RickY) gets thrashed by a complete newbie under his own roof.

The first to turn up was Ilona Halbach (fraufuchs), flying in from Germany to partake in the event, followed by Mauro Lazzara (soqquadro) who then turned right around and went home to pick something up - luckily he lives only a mile or so up the road. Malcolm Watton (malcolm) brought his wife along, and Alex Thompson (toddy) brought not only her whole family but another three Tantix initiates from Holland. Steven Trezise (steven2) and Julia Schwarz (jade) put in a belated but much anticipated appearance.

General chaos and mayhem ensued - playing at the table, on the floor, anywhere there was a semblance of a flat surface. A young lady playing hostess and stuffing us all with Pringles (and I am not referring to a player who at one point used that nick name).

	Tantrix addicts in the making - future World Champions.

The new recruits were introduced to the game that was at the heart of the party and demonstrated an aptitude and level of addiction that has had at least one of them visiting the lobby. Ketan Tailor (see pic, left) put the party's host to shame in his first game ever.

Food was served, people ate (once they were forcefully dragged away from their games, only to run back to them before they had a chance to have seconds. These were finally forced on them (with further interruptions to their ongoing games)). During these enforced breaks, Steven found himself besieged by people with great ideas for the world of Tantrix (most of which I am certain he had heard a thousand times before, though he didn't say it).

Tantrix Death Match Rules The Tantrix Death Match is played with one bag of tiles per player. It is recommended that there be some way to distinguish which tiles belong to whom, like using one old set and one new. Players each draw from their own bag; the end game starts for each player when his bag is empty. This will be at different times for each player. End game rules apply only to players who are in their end game. Forced spaces must be filled, even if they are created by one's opponent during the opponent's end game and form part of another forced space's controlled side.

To test one of the theories, Mauro and Rick lined up across the table, a bag of tiles each. It was a Tantrix Death Match (a reference to the headaches induced by trying to count that many tiles to see if forced spaces could be filled, and by whom). Mauro won by a small margin after a last minute come-back by Rick, the offset end games working in his favour but not well enough..

Support was given to Mazzer in her WTTC match against Pekko as half the attendees gathered around a large monitor and watched the game in full zoom. Why she decided she didn't want to attend and play on said screen, we may never understand.

As the party wound down, Malcolm having abandoned us and half the Thompson clan (plus Dutch guests) departing, Steven and Rick got into a deep conversation about something to do with Tantrix and the rest of them decided to try some of the other games lying around the house... Not only did some attendees discover Tantrix, quite a few discovered Fluxx too (it's a simple game... draw one, play one, until, that is, someone plays another rule).

Everyone was so engrossed in what they were doing that it was only a chance glance at a watch that warned that the last train home was due in a few minutes. Players scrambled madly, and everyone made it home safely (or that's what we'll let you believe).