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Anthony Boydell
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
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The sun was shining this morning when I set off in the direction of Stroud to attend at least part of Alan & Charlie Paull's games weekend (aka Paullcon, well - only aka-ed by ME, but what do I know?). I had second son, Benedict, in tow so I wasn't going to get a marathon HIGH FRONTIER in, as I'd need to keep the young chap occupied and, preferrably, well away from the sweet bowls.
Our arrival coincided with Si and Arlo's, Si being one of the Holy British triumvirate responsible for the INTO THE GAMESCAPE podcast (go listen, it's marvellous) and they chit-chatted for a bit while Alan, Benedict and myself finished a game of MEGASTAR (a quirky Friese card affair that I picked up for €3 last Essen).
We retired to the back room, with the long table, for a 5 player of Paperclip Railways - the first one for quite a while in my recent play-test schedule! There was me, Si, Arlo, Benedict and Mike (a railway game enthusiast) and we took about 75 mins all-in-all. Good reception and a pleasingly aggressive game - lots of building to interfere or poach: just as it should be! Very, VERY early incarnations of the game were quite solo in their feel with players pretty much ignoring everyone else BUT NO MORE!
Next Beebs and I joined Richard Breese and Jenny for our first introduction to the excellent FITS - looks simple, doesn't it? It was all I could do to end any round with ZERO, let alone get positive points! Good fun and one game now on my shopping list.
In a similar vein, Richard suggested we tried Callisto (from honorary German: the British designer Reiner Knizia) - but this seemed like a varied (and inferior) BLOKUS, so I gave a second game a pass - though Benedict enjoyed it very much (but he's never played BLOKUS)
As is always the case at these weekends, the hours simply breezed by and I had to leave, with a tired son, around 3-ish. I was also acting as courier for Ross-on-Wye club supremo Ben (ousgg), taking him one of the few remaining copies of Key Market - it was a great excuse to nip out on my newly-refurbished motorbike in 'courier' mode.
And then it rained...
But you really couldn't take the smile off my face - it's been a delightful day, all-in-all, and garlic chicken awaits for this evenings repast.
Yum!
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