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Anthony Boydell
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Having spent a relaxed few hours sipping OJ & lemonade and reviewing a training presentation I'm due to give tomorrow, I hot-tailed it to The Red Herring (Gresham Street, London) for this evenings proceedings.
Nominally, there is usually a 'theme' to inspire and entice - but I usually forego this in favour of Agricola - it's fun trying to justify medieval farming when the theme is Czech designers (it has a 'Czech deck) or Party Games (who needs a pinata when you have wooden wild boar?) etc
After the disappointment of no games last night, I waited for the arrival of Conrad - beardy, American - and his precious cargo of Lookout Games' 'turning point'...surprisingly, while Conrad (hirsute, foreign) had yet to appear and my meal of 'Crispy Pork Belly with Black Pudding and Lentils' lay cooling on the table in front of me, I noticed that someone elses copy of Agricola has magically appeared in the 'game supply'.
Lord, is this a sign?
Within a few seconds I was laying out wooden discs, shuffling the Occs and Improvements and dibsing myself the red pieces. Conrad, follically generous in the buccal region and from the other side of the Atlantic, duly arrived to find us all set up and raring to go! Us being: Gabe (a clean-shaven fellow USA-ean), Martin (English through-and-through) and myself (balding, greying, slightly-unfit).
90 mins later and I reigned supreme: 44-35-28-26 - not merely a 'victory', but the Agricolan equiv of rubbing everyone else's face in it!
Conrad reacted to this Olympian triumph by getting food poisoning from his Caesar Salad and having to go home early - leaving Martin and Gabe to join me in a 3 player play-test of Paperclip Railways (ha! got 'em!).
Play-testing is an odd fish and no mistake - I dearly want people to try out new designs but I feel ever so guilty for dragging them away from stuff that's already been released. There's that awkward moment when the question is asked and the surrounding group of waiting gamers fragments...off to the loo, the bar, or to 'Dave who's just starting up a quick Dominion' etc.
To round off the evening, someone in the same carriage on the home train let off the most outrageous arse-stink and it brought most of the rest of us to tears. Goodness, what has the world come to?
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