Codenames 41

[T-hawk]

Just to cover this rules question:

This may be against the spirit (or letter) of the rules, but here's my reasoning:

1. PLASTIC is correct, and thrawn wanted to clear the seven words left on the board. Thus, a 6-clue.
2. Knowing that we were going to guess PLASTIC, his clue could be aimed at only five words if we were on the right track with two of our other buoyant guesses.

The rule (both letter and spirit) is that Stabilises 6 means that it connects to 6 intended words. If it was meant to be 5, he'd clue it as Unlimited, which by the rules specifies you intend to catch up on multiple previous guesses. The team has to infer the 5; the usual approach is to assume Unlimited means to clue all remaining unclued words.

It's also possible that both of DaveV's scenarios are true, meaning Stabilises 6 where one overlaps with one of the Buoyant words. Figuring out that sort of thing is the fun of the game

[Tarkeel]

Green 4 was supposed to clue THUMB + LIGHT + YARD + CARROT, but then you all picked up on TRAIN instead of CARROT. I could live with that, but it made CARROT harder to clue later on. I thought I'd made sure that any misses here wouldn't be fatal, but Amica had me very worried with the Mexico fixation.

The trick was how to clue the rest, but with that lead going slower and safe seemed like a good option. It doesn't get much safer than Commonwealth 2 for AUSTRALIA + QUEEN, which was going to add SEAL and be Royal 3. CARROT + BELL on the other hand don't have too much in common. The "Stick and Carrot" part was easy to get, but ringing a BELL with a stick wasn't as easy, but the best I could come up with. TRAIN + BELL with Noisy 2 was the original plan there.

[El Grillo]

Gotta love it when the last two words don’t cooperate like that. I thought for sure that Stick was referring to a stick of dynamite or to a fighter jet’s pilot stick

[JR4]

PILOT was blue after all. Stick was a good (but also risky) clue to confuse the issue. Good game.

[DaveV]

Yes, good game red team. Is shallow-thought on deck to be spymaster next round? If so, it sounds like we should replace him. I'll do it if neither JR4 nor El Grillo wants to.

[JR4]

I`m happy just guessing next round.

[Tarkeel]

Stick wasn't meant to confuse the issue, but the only other clue I could come up with was "Vegetable" for Bell (Pepper) which obviously wasn't great.

[Amicalola]

Who wants to spymaster for red team next? I can try redeeming myself, but if anyone else wants to they should go first.

What's the link with dangle and carrot?

[shallow_thought]

What's the link with dangle and carrot?

You tie a carrot to a stick and dangle it front of your donkey's nose to make it go faster; in cartoons at least - I suspect that real world donkeys are both smarter and lazier.

And yeah - better a different blue spymaster; I hadn't stuck my head above the parapet (yet) anyway.

[Azoth]

Well done both spymasters on a tricky round. Green was an inspried opening clue.

(Vegetable 2 or Peppers 2 would have worked fine for CARROT/BELL, I think. So long as there is a clear connection to both words, the clue doesn't have to be a "category".)