Happy Friday everyone! What a mix of treats for you this afternoon as you sup your cuppa and munch on a Hobnob biscuit. While you’re there, I’d just like to say thank you so much for visiting – The Boarding Kennel got its most visitors ever this week, and every day saw more users than the last. Which is a lovely thing. I’ve got loads of things planned for the site, including some most likely hideously amateurish video of me and my friends playing some of our favourite games.I’ve never done any filming or video production before – how hard can it be though, right? Anyway, never mind that now – fill your boots with these beauties from around the board game web.
GAMES WORKSHOP: THE INSIDE STORY
One of the true gaming big boys, Games Workshop marked my own introduction to gaming as a tender primary school pupil, wide-eyed and slack-brained leafing through my first White Dwarf magazine and coveting various metal dwarfs and space marines. I distinctly remember visiting the store for the first time in Portsmouth and goggling my way around the display cases checking out beautifully-painted models while Two Princes by Spin Doctors played on the stereo – at that point I genuinely couldn’t imagine anything cooler. For anyone who’s gone in and out of a Games Workshop phase, it’s easy to feel that your own fledgling memories coincide with what must have been the early years of the company, but the old codger goes back further than you might think. Fellow newbie board gaming website Unplugged Gaming has released the first part of its history of Games Workshop , and it’s a bloody super read.
SETTLERS OF CATAN: THE MOVIE
Or TV show! The marvel of modern board gaming continues to infiltrate popular culture 20 years after some nerdy Germans began swapping wood and bricks around the dining table. Now Hollywood has got its hands on the rights in the form of veteran film, TV and theatre producer Gail Katz, whose previous work includes In The Line of Fire, Air Force One, Outbreak and The Perfect Storm. So expect a Catan where the fugitive robber is being hunted by ex-CIA operatives, who have to avoid a deadly sheep-borne virus as they scour the island for their prey (building towns and roads as they go). She said in a statement, “The island of Catan is a vivid, visual, exciting and timeless world with classic themes and moral challenges that resonate today. There is a tremendous opportunity to take what people love about the game and its mythology as a starting point for the narrative.” Sounds like it might be all right to be honest.
LEARNING TO PLAY HEROCLIX
Another one from a relatively new blog, Hilary Goldstein from Dog and Thimble shines a light on the daunting challenge of getting into Heroclix, a tabletop figure-collecting game in which you assemble a team of superheroes to duff over your mates. Their own teams I mean, not jamming Martian Manhunter up their nose and Black Widow up their bum. If you like the sound of a massively-collectible Marvel and DC-themed addition to your games box, you could do worse than checking out Goldstein’s smart introduction to the hobby here.