Today was a good day to die….figuratively – on the Diplomacy board anyway! An, almost, all-day session with the usual suspects, plus a few new faces who were eager to learn the ways of Diplomacy.

It all started a little slowly for me as Turkey, with Russia (under David) and Austria-Hungary (the Sams) proving to be minor irritations in the Balkans. On the other side of the board, France (Beth and Susanna), England (Ally) and Germany (Sarah) were making mad dashes all over the place, and Italy (Dave) was dithering in the middle not really knowing what to do with itself.

After a few turns, Germany was carved up between the western powers and Sarah got her cross-stitch out. A little while later, Italy fell to the dominance of Ottoman rule, followed shortly after by Austria-Hungary.

Just as France started disintegrating under an English offensive, time caught up with us, and ten hours after starting, we called it a draw, with a Russian-Turkish front stretching from Sevastepol to Switzerland.