Had a great weekend's gaming. Went up to Nick's flat on Saturday afternoon to play Paths of Glory. I drew the Central Powers, and we decided to play with the optional rules and the extra cards from the Player Guide. I kicked off with Guns of August, and Race to the Sea shortly afterwards allowed me to cut off the Belgians in Antwerp. Nick and John (who had just turned up) accused me of timidity, but I played Entrench and sat on a fairly conservative line just inside France.

We paused from POG so that we could play Empires of the Ancient World with John, which was great fun Even if I came last I had the satisfaction of sinking the other two in big naval battles in the last turn. Nick produced a truly excellent curry and John beat us at Carcassone to round the evening off.

On Sunday afternoon Nick and I picked up the POG game again. There was a confusing tussle in Russia, then Nick brought in the Italians who broke through into Austria. Then he launched a very effective sequence of offensives on the Western Front, evicting me from France completely. Unfortunately for Nick, his focus on the West allowed me to encircle 5 Russian armies and 2 Italian armies in one turn.

We wrapped it up at that point (after 6 turns). Although Nick was rightly discouraged by his lost armies, my position in the West was shaky. If we had continued I would have urgently SR'd German armies back from the East, while attempting to get an outright win by snapping up Italian and Russian victory points. By no means a sure thing, and it could easily have swung back in Nick's favour.

What a great game this is! Looking forward to playing it again soon. Thanks Nick.