Codenames 14

[pjabrony]

Mass as an answer for Commonwealth never even crossed my mind. I thought that was the best possible clue for Queen/Australia/Capital; obviously it didn't work well for the team. By the way, State is a bad clue with Gas on the board.

I was thinking that if those three were the connection, the clue to give might have been "Victoria." It's not the capital of Australia, but it is the name of many places there, and it's got to be a capital of something. But that's Monday-morning spymastering.

I like CONDUCTOR and LIGHT as well but was looking at STAFF as in a magic spell cast by a staff, but I like going CAPITAL and QUEEN third and fourth.

... even if we were talking about magical lightning, that's shown just as often being cast by the fingers (Think of the Emperor in Star Wars).

Yeah, I was way off your wavelength there. Hitting a grey word on the first guess is demoralizing even if it's part of the plan.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, I was way off your wavelength there. Hitting a grey word on the first guess is demoralizing even if it's part of the plan.

Yeah, I think Light going gray soured me on Conductor at the end, since we'd already been burned on one of the more academic interpretations of "thunderbolt".

[rho21]

First off, my apologies for such an unpleasant final clue. I really couldn't think of anything better.

That was by far the toughest set of words I've ever had. I had a bit of trouble even forming pairs of words. The only good news was that the blue words were pretty mediocre too, with lots of unhelpful read and grey words in the way.

Its fine I should have argued my case more clearly. I think passing is almost always the least optimal option.

When playing online, I very much agree with this. It's pretty rare that guessing an opponent's word actually speeds them up by a turn, and having an extra guess can really help. Of course, Mass was a counterexample here, I wasn't seeing a good way of tying it into a 3.

I was aware of both String and Play as possibilities for Fingering. I played piano in my youth, so was worried about my bias in that direction. Good decision, team.

Close game; hard luck blue team.

[DaveV]

First off, my apologies for such an unpleasant final clue. I really couldn't think of anything better.

It seemed like the obvious choice looking at your final two words, but I wondered whether you would go there. Does that mean that the [blue] team wins via Godwin's Law?

Edit: changed "red" to "blue"; my original post said exactly the opposite of what I'd intended.

[Lewwyn]

That was a good game. In the end blue made red sweat before choking. Classic.

Great job rho.

[Azoth]

Good game, everyone.

Mass as an answer for Commonwealth never even crossed my mind. I thought that was the best possible clue for Queen/Australia/Capital; obviously it didn't work well for the team. By the way, State is a bad clue with Gas on the board.

Yeah, I never would have thought of MASS, either. I can see how Americans would easily make the connection, but as a Canadian, when I hear Commonwealth, I think the British Commonwealth. I actually thought you were going for AUSTRALIA/QUEEN/BOND, though (the Commonwealth being the bond between the first two). Just clue-ing Canberra 3 may have been better to lock down AUSTRALIA and CAPITAL, hoping that someone would know that the Queen is technically the head of state.

I knew we were in trouble after the first round, so I tried to sweep up three more words with Thunderbolt. I would have liked Lightning better, but couldn't use it with Light on the board. Conductor/Cast/Staff is not a very cohesive group, but I couldn't come up with anything better. Musical clues for Conductor, String, and Staff were problematic while Play and Piano remained in play.

In a perfect world, I would have used Kite for tail and string, but I thought I needed to steer the team back to Cast (which didn't seem to be clicking, despite being used in a couple discussion posts*). I did think of Mercury, but thought it was only tangentially connected to Thunderbolt.

Yeah, I think you run into grey words no matter what. Even if you tried Mage 2 for STAFF/CAST and then Kite 3 for TAIL/STRING/CONDUCTOR (going for the Ben Franklin key-and-the-kite connection), you'd run into PLAY. Tough words.

When playing online, I very much agree with this. It's pretty rare that guessing an opponent's word actually speeds them up by a turn, and having an extra guess can really help. Of course, Mass was a counterexample here, I wasn't seeing a good way of tying it into a 3.

Yeah, makes sense. I don't think I would have passed if I had remembered that we had two unclued words left, not one. But it's still debatable: you have to balance the chance at an extra guess against not only the risk of hitting a blue/black word, but also giving more information to the other team and more flexibility to their spymaster.

So who's up for Round 2? I wouldn't mind being spymaster, unless someone else on Red wants a shot.

[Dp101]

GG all. As an Australian I found the discussion of "Wait, is Australia a commonwealth?" hilarious to watch. I would like to thank our spymaster for providing the clues that allowed us to win, and I don't blame my team at all for screwing up the numbering. I would be happy to play again.

[Lewwyn]

I would be happy to play again.

That's only the first round, its best of 3

Azoth, go for spymaster.

[pjabrony]

Yes, if Azoth and myself will spymaster, then Pindicator can generate a board for Round 2 at his convenience.

[pindicator]

ROUND 2:

SOCK	BUTTON	SPOT	EAGLE	MAMMOTH
BELL	SCUBA_DIVER	STRAW	CANADA	MEXICO
BARK	PUPIL	GREECE	AZTEC	MICROSCOPE
BRUSH	FIELD	JET	LAWYER	SPIDER
KNIGHT	PIRATE	NUT	SHARK	TABLE

Had to add an underscore to "SCUBA DIVER" for formatting purposes, to keep it all on one line. Please pretend it isn't there.

Blue is up.

Answer grid has been sent to spymasters. Good luck!