Dice And Boards And Cards

I had somewhat of a misspent youth. No, no, it wasn’t sex and drugs and rock’n’roll and that is precisely why you could label it as misspent. I didn’t spend it doing any of those things (although there was a fair amount of drinking - I am English, after all). No, my teenage years were spent in the grip of a far more insidious vice.

My name is Nick and I was into fantasy board games.

For those of you who either know me or have taken the time to trawl through previous witterings on here, this should come as no surprise (and if it does come as a surprise then you clearly haven’t been paying attention). I know what you’re thinking*, you’re thinking, “Ah, one of those nerdy Dungeons & Dragons types, eh?” and you’d be partly right. We certainly tried Dungeons & Dragons (which I’m betting has had something of  resurgence recently thanks to Stranger Things) but it was too loose and freeform a structure for us and none of us had the requisite improvisational skills necessary to really get into a game.

No, the preference amongst my group of fellow nerdy types was for something with a board, pieces, cards and dice, with a definitive beginning and ending and a winner (depending on how the long the game was and whether we got bored by the end). Favourites included:-

Talisman
In which:- You play a fantasy character attempting to navigate the levels of the board to the centre.
Why it was good:- This one could go on for days when you added in the various expansion boards that could be played across as well. It was very easy to get lost in it.

Blood Bowl
In which:- You play American football with teams comprised of orcs, dwarves, elves, skeletons, trolls, etc. Vicious play encouraged.
Why it was good:- To be honest, we actually played the game very infrequently. The majority of our time was spent rolling and creating teams and swapping players. That was the fun bit.

Space Hulk
In which:- One of you plays the plucky space marines and one the dastardly aliens.
Why it was good:- It’s basically Aliens The Board Game and who wouldn't want to play that? Exactly.

Heroquest
In which:- You explore a dungeon killing monsters and getting treasure.
Why it was good:- Well, this guy sums it up pretty well...

There were quite a few around back in the early days of the 90s but nothing like the sheer number of board and card games available today - more on that another time...


* I don’t, obviously, but I still haven’t grown out of this particular conversation-style literary tick so just stick with it.