I think it has been mentioned on the forums before, but do any of you go to the board game meetups of London On Board, in particular Old Star Saturdays? My wife and I will be in London on vacation in May, and are thinking of stopping by on Saturday the 17th. If any of you will be there, I'd love to say hi!
That is definitely a thing I can do!
London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
EDIT: I knew you'd be back, no one can resist the lure of London once they've been there once…
I should make clear that I am not saying you are a lounger or an idler, just that I love the opportunity to use a good Holmes quote
*grumbles about not going back to London*
Craig, you missed and hit me instead with your "No Vacation For You" power.
Sorry, Paul, but I'm gonna have to put the kebash on this "vacation" idea. You know you aren't allowed those.
Those stolen smoke bombs came back to bite you in the @##
@Matchstickman
It is true, I love London!
Ooooh...I'll see if my partner can get the day off or something (he usually works on Saturdays, which is why our monthly meet-up with PWatson and Matchstickman occurs on a Sunday), but if not I may have to head on up there by myself anyway, just this once ;).
Oh man, London on Board is without a doubt what I miss most about living in London (even more than museums, theaters or my old uni). I used to go to LoB 4 times a week- and now I am down to twice a year.
At least I can join in the grumbling...
I've been meaning to get back down to London sometime. This is a great excuse.
@Silverleaf
It would be awesome to see you again!
@Julia
You should totally come to London in May for a visit! It is so much closer for you than for me! :D
That would be cool if you could come, Silverleaf...hey, maybe you could bring Dixit and finally show it to me? :D
This is getting tempting (also because the Premier League will have finished it's season and I'll have a free Saturday...)
Well our usual gaming holiday week is, for various reasons, not happening for us this year (well it's happening, but we're not going), so there's certainly the possibility of having a London trip instead. That would be nice, because it'd be great to meet up with you guys again, we had such a great time last year!
And yeah, Dixit. Definitely Dixit. ;)
If Ja'Ph' hadn't gone to bed so early (he went at like, quarter past ten or something), I'd've been able to ask him about his availability already...but now I have to wait until maybe 9pm or so tomorrow (well, today, technically - five past two in the morning now yaay) before I can bug him about hopefully getting that day off, lol :D.
Hey, I can either buy plane tickets to London, or I can back your company's silly kickstarter projects, now what's it gonna be? 
On a somewhat related note, the British Library is having a special exhibition on British comic books around that time, so anybody who is going down to London and really likes comics (and isn't terrified by the ticket price) may potentially wanna check that out.
Paul,
Do you want me to have a word with the organiser to make sure two places are booked for that event as they tend to get full really fast these days and you can only book a fortnight in advance?
@pwatson1974 That would be great!
@Julia That looks cool! Semi-relatedly? One of the main reasons we wanted to go to London again this spring specifically was because of the Viking Exhibiton at the British Museum.
@Silverleaf You should totally come down! It would be awesome to see you again!
Out of curiosity, how many, if any, of you guys who will be there are backers on the GSF Kickstarter? I ask because it is unlikely that GSF will be in stores in the UK by then, but it is relatively likely that KS backers will have their copies, and it would be awesome to play GSF with you all :)
Not in the stores by mid May you say? Rabble rabble rabble!
I am not a kickstarter backer, nor have I played the game, or even looked at the stuff up in the playtesting forums. I would love my first play of the game to be with one of the designers!
Yeah, me too. 
Want me to take pictures with my box next week to make you feel like you have it? 
I am not sure if it will be in stores by mid-May or not, but it seems to take a while for products to show up in UK stores, so I don't want to count on it.
I backed it but I never really read the rules summary (stuff like that never goes in - I have to actually be following the rules of a game through as I play it in order to actually understand them) or anything, so other than the fact it's a co-operative game of battles in space (or something), I don't really know much about it other than the fluff details that were released about the various races and their ships and stuff (the Spectres looked cool...). It was the "co-operative" part combined with the fact it's a >G game which really got me to back it. So I'm looking forward to checking it out, whenever my copy arrives :).
I backed and if I've got it, I'll make sure it will be along with me on the 17th.
Awesome! I am super excited!
Paul,
Spoken to Jeff (the organsier). It's all sorted. London on Board will be happy to have you on the 17th May.
Wow, awesome! So... what do we do? Just show up some time?
Yeah, you just turn up outside the pub at (or slightly before) 11am - there's usually a bunch of people already waiting and you just stand around and chat until the pub people come and open the door :).
Must keep an eye out for when this one opens up... I definitely want to take a look at GSF!
How late does it go? We are busy on Saturday until early evening doing some tourist stuff in Westminster. Would it be reasonable to turn up around 4 or 5?
It lasts for about nine hours usually, so will be finishing around 8. Should be plenty of time left for games and socialising should you arrive then.
Cool! That is around when we'll arrive, plus or minus several hours. :)
I actually have to be in Sheffield in the afternoon on Sunday the 18th (for a rehearsal and then a concert), so this is more complicated than it could be.
Think I could possibly still manage it, just working out details. Michael says he's up for it too, so this is good. Yay!
Are we thinking about some kind of extra socialising after the gaming?
Sure, that could be neat! We have some plans on some days, but Sat afternoon/evening is wide open at this point :)
Hmm, Ja'Ph' said that he probably can't get the day off work but is likely to only be doing a half-day anyway, so finishing work at 1pm. I planned on getting there at the start time (and then he can come along later once he's finished work, probably arriving around two-ish) but didn't realise you'd be turning up so late (we normally leave around four). Maybe we can stick around longer, then...we normally skip lunch and go for a Nando's when we leave but maybe I could go meet Ja'Ph' at Victoria and grab a KFC and then we both come back again. I dunno, we'll have to see closer to the time I suppose :).
KFC is no substitute for Nando's… no matter what the circumstances!!!
Nando's is the only reason I ever even visit my sister in DC (there's no Nando's anywhere else in the States)
Yuk to Nandos.
KFC is the quicker option if we plan on heading back to the Old Star - Nando's is what we tend to do after leaving for the day, as we will do thi Sunday when we leave at around 4pm like usual. But if Paul isn't gonna be there till around that time anyway (plus Ja'Ph' will most likely be arriving some hours after me), it'll probably be easier for me to nip back to Victoria to meet Ja'Ph' when he arrives, then the two of us grab a quick KFC there, and then come back for more gaming goodness so we're not sitting hungry for many hours :D.
Don't know about sticking around for non-gaming stuff afterwards...will have to see what kind of things that entails - neither of us tends to go for generic "socialising", really.
I'm fairly sure any socialising involving me, Matchstickman, Anna, Paul and his wife will be decidedly non-generic.
If I'm there, there will be a Michael too.
And we're up for any socialising, generic or otherwise. It was really good fun last time, and I was thoroughly entertained.
And if I'm travelling hundreds of miles it'd be lovely to take advantage of it as much as possible.
Well, I was more referring to the fact that if I'm with a bunch of people for a specific reason (in this case, playing games), I'm okay with that. If I'm just standing/sitting around expected to engage in general conversation, I'm no good at it because everyone else is taking and I don't want to interrupt becuase I think that would be rude, and usually don't know how to start a conversation so just sit there feling awkward and uncomfortable. Basically I'm fine at interacting with a group if we're doing something specific and I have some input to offer, and fine at chatting with just one other person. But if it's just me and a bunch of people I never know what to do. Even saying hello can be an effort if I have to initiate it, though I can usually manage if someone else says it first ;).
But I think I already mentioned in the "RL superpower" thread that I'm weird, didn't I? ;)
It's cool Ameena, whatever you're comfortable with. :)
I would love to hang out with you guys, play games with you guys, etc.
I definitely understand and can empathize with the not liking to talk with strangers in a generic socializing setting, Ameena. Maia's IRL super power, on the other hand, is chatting with strangers :)
We'll have to see what happens on the day, I suppose :). Not trying to make it sound like "omg I don't want to hang around with you people eww" or anything, I just know what it's like for me in social gatherings ;).
Ja'Ph' has confirmed that he can't get the day off (as someone else had already booked it, boooo) but he is working a half-day so finishing at 1pm...so we'll probably do what I said in an earlier post wherein I go up there by myself, nip over to Victoria to meet him and have lunch when he arrives, then come back and play more games and stuff :). It's only about a half-hour train journey back to where he lives from Victoria and neither of us will have work the next day or anything, so there won't be any particular time constraints on us going home if we do decide to stick around.
We understand. I have days myself when face-to-face people stuff feels like too much hard work, and I have to psych myself up to do it at all. It's strange, because I love meeting new people and generic socialising, but find it very difficult at times.
Anyway, I am very much looking forward to London-flavoured socialising of both the gaming and non-gaming variety, assuming I can make it. It would indeed be awesome to see everyone again!
Yeah it will be cool if you can come :). If you can bring Dixit as well, that would be very cool too - you made it sound like a very interesting/fun game when you told me about it before :).
If I'm there, Dixit will definitely come with me. I only hope you enjoy it after I talked it up so much!
Dixit is a very fun game. It helps if you're either on the same wavelength as the other players or an awesome mind-reader/guesser, but it's great fun to play.
in - like - Flynn. see you all there!
ps Paul (GTG Paul) here's another open offer for a lift from Heathrow to wherever you need to be, let me know if I can help!
and another +1 for Dixit. May I suggest that one word clues and cultural references are avoided though? My experience is that these are the things that cause the game to tank, so when we play we come up with a few lines of ambiguous story on our turns. It works really well as the game slants more toward how the cards catch the story-telling than who at the table gets the obscure reference somebody just made.
I think one-word clues are absolutely fine (we're actually had some beautiful clues that consisted of a weird noise, a whistled tune, a gesture, or similar), but for the sake of making the game more fun it's best to avoid anything that at least one person doesn't have a hope in hell of getting.
For example, forum in-jokes if we're playing with non-forumites, or if I referenced something about me that only Michael could possibly know, or "c'est le lapin dans l'espace cosmique" if only two of us speak French. That's no fun for the players who are excluded and can't even make an educated guess.
Maia is super nice to talk with. I hope you all get that opportunity. Love you guys.
@Mezike
Thanks for the offer! We'll take the tube again though for sure - I love well run mass transit systems, and don't have a lot of opportunity to use them because America, so it is part of the fun of being on vacation for me :)
I don't think these two sentences go together as well as you think they do!
EDIT: And as if to prove as much, part closures on the 17th, to the very station we would usually get off at!
[url= Tube, Overground, Elizabeth line, DLR & Tram status updates - Transport for London ] Link to 17th May tube status[/url]
One thing to note, is that those comments were not only made by an American, but one who lives well within the Heartland area of America. As someone who also lives in (a different part of) the American Heartland, I think I will agree with his comments. Relatively speaking, of course.
I believe the best the Midwest in general has to offer as far as public transit is concerned would be Chicago.
@Matchstickman
How much time have you spent trying to get around an average city in the US without a car? I suspect that if you were sentenced to Los Angeles for a month, you'd suddently be much happier about the underground ;)
Los Angeles has reputedly gotten much better that way recently. I’m sure it doesn’t touch NYC, though.
Yeah, I know it's better than I think it is.
I also know that's it's worse than you think it is!
I love the underground and even like the London buses, but then I'm used to the kind of bus service where you have to pay attention to where you are to know where to get off, and it's rather difficult if you're travelling to an unfamiliar place or somewhere you otherwise don't recognise.
I like how London transport very clearly announces every stop. It's most helpful.
Sums up public transport in general, I think
CTA is awesome when it's funded. You can get within a half-mile of anywhere within that massive sprawl.
I lived 40 minutes from the heart of Downtown by red line. It was a fhree hour commute by car. I couldn't believe anyone would choose to drive.
DC and NY are good too.
The West Coast is dumb, and the heartland would largely rather drive, because they can get away with it, and they love their pickup trucks and SUV's.
I live in Los Angeles and have gone carless for most of 2014. Well, I guess I have gone about 90% carless for all of 2014. Before thatid say I was about 50% car dependent through 2013. It takes some planning and some tough choices and some getting used to, but I think it's no different than the planning, tough choices, and getting used to it takes to drive a car everywhere. It's just that those decisions have been taken for granted as just part of living in the big city, so it makes the thought of ditching your car seem a lot harder than it actual is. The hardest is to really just wrap your head around it and decide to do it.
For a very long time a car has been a symbol of freedom in America, but with the cost of maintenance, the need for insurance, the availability of parking, the constraints of traffic, etc. that freedom is in actuality less and less a reality.
EDIT: Ha… I went on a bit of a rant there, my apologies (I am a transportation planner/engineer in Los Angeles working on creating/improving our multi-modal network, so it's an exciting an dear topic to me).
What I meant to say was "Yeah! Public Transportation Rocks!!"
I've never owned a car myself. That makes getting used to not driving somewhat easier!
Ha. That it would.
Except for in a handful of cities, such a statement would bring looks of shock from everyone around you here in the States.
Hmmm... this made me think of a new category for joke awards: Plummetting Monorail - for most derailed threads (not that I'd win or anything, but it would be a funny one)
Anywho, back to some semblance of relevance to the original thread... does London on Board meet every Saturday? I am actually looking into a trip to London later this year (well, Bristol really for a wedding, but some time in London seems a must if I manage to get that close)
I think they meet every Saturday and Sunday, and like, Tuesdays and some other day as well or something (though some of the meet-ups are at a different place, somewhere else in London). If you want to sign up for an event it opens up two weeks before the event in question, and you can sign up just yourself, or yourself plus one.
Me and Ja'Ph' are usually there once a month on a Sunday. PWatson goes there more often I think. We often see Matchstickman when we go but I don't know if he goes on any other days. BlueHairedMeerkat was there when we went the other day as well :).
London On Board is on meetup.com here (http://www.meetup.com/LondonOnBoard/). We meet pretty much every weekend and most evenings, althoguh at different pubs.
If you're coming from overseas as Paul is, send an e-mail to the organiser and they'll sort you out with a place rather than having to join and book one. I tend to go to Tuesday and Wednesday meetups and the once a month Sentinels game day that Ameena attends on the weekends. Let me know when you'll be in the vicinty and I'll try to arrange things to make life easier.
wait, what? When is this mysterious once a month Sentinels game day, and is there an open invite? Sundays are not the best day for me as I have to take the kids to a club in the morning but I would live to drop in on one of these some day 
Mezike,
Generally it's once a month when someone, usually me, can organise it. It's usually a Sunday as Ameena's partner can't make Saturday's easily due to work. It's absolutely open, but we might need to split the group if more than the usual five turn up. Not that this is a problem, just saying.
The next one is, obviously, on the 17th May to take advantage of Paul's visit.
It's at London ofn Board, so you would need to sign up for the event. I'll let you know when we decide when the June one will be.
Awesome sauce.
Is there a date for when this event will be open for sign-ups?
Also, anyone heading there this Saturday?
So excited about this!
Question about England/London: Do restaurants/pubs have fountain softdrinks?
Nope. You are provided with a straw and a sheep. The rest is up to you.
Just to be clear about what you mean - is that a drink that you buy once and can refill with lemonade/coke etc? The only places I know that do that are family restaurants, and even then it's quite rare
Mostly the American themed restaurants 
You can get non alcoholic drinks in any restaurant or bar; soda drinks are usually made with postmix, but some places sell in bottles or cans so it's worth asking if you are fussy.
Also,
My mind asplode at whatever you think people do with this ungodly combination. An Englishman's sheep is a very dear and personal matter, one we don't usually discuss in public and it is certainly inappropriate to touch or comment apon another persons Ovis aries. Even when it is chewing on one's Chaps the preferred response is to maintain a stiff upper lip, avoid eye contact, and talk about the weather.
But tell us please, what are the potentials of ovine aviation?
The weekend LoB sessions tend to open for booking about a fortnight before the session. And asI'll only have arrived back in Blighty on the Saturday and will still be confused what day it is, probably not.
My partner and I are gonna be in London on Saturday, but not going to LoB - we're just generally going into London to mooch in all the gaming shops. We're gonna go to Forbidden Planet, I've looked up the Orc's Nest (having heard about it for the first time on this forum a while back but never having got round to actually looking into going there) and see that it's just down the road from Forbidden Planet and it sounds like a cool place so we're gonna poke in there as well. And maybe go up to Leisure Games again as well because omg games. I dunno whether we're gonna buy anything, we just want to go around and look at All of the Things :D.
Orcs Nest is cool in it's own way - I'd say it carries maybe 1/3 of the stock that Leisure Games does because of the size of store but it does cover a good range. It probably supports RPGs better that Leisure Games does. Still, have a fun time browsing, I love that part of town (and the South Bank... oh I really love the South Bank...)
I would love to go to more game stores in the UK at some point for comparison. I have only been to Leisure Games, and while both the store and the owner are *super* awesome, it is really a tiny gaming store from my US perspective.
Everything's smaller over here though, right?
Not pints of beer! :D
It comes in pints?
Would love to know what you'd make of Orcs Nest then! If LG is tiny, ON would probably feel like a cupboard with a cash register… I don't know if it's different in the rest of the country (I get the impression that Spirit Games in the Midlands is a decent size), but in London, LG is the biggest one I've found
Forbidden Planet (which is just down the road from Orc's Nest) is pretty big, and while it does cater more to comics and sci-fi/fantasy media there is a large section on games (though possibly not a wide selection) but I agree that Leisure Games is by far the biggest (and best) all round gaming shop in London.
From the Department of Expectations Management: Given what Paul has said in https://greaterthangames.com/comment/68304#comment-68304 about packing games over Memorial Day, it is looking unlikely that we will get the chance to play GSF with him on his trip to the UK.
For those inquiring about when you can sign up for the LoB session on the 17th, the booking begins Sunday May 4th at 8pm.
Have to say I rather liked the pub and the food prices are a bit cheaper than I was expecting in London! Plus there is a motorbike parking bay about 50m from the pub which is pretty cool for me.
Ameena, did you get to check out Orcs Nest in the end?
We did, yeah - like a smaller version of Leisure Games. Pretty cool :). We didn't buy anything but it's nice to know it's there.
It's 8pm on the 4th of May, the London on Board meetup for the 17th is now open
Spaces are limited so you'll want to be RSVP pretty soon.
See you there!
POW! Beat you to it Mr Watson!
RSVPed! (And also did a scouting run to work out a motorcycle route the other day... London has definitely evolved for public transport though!
Lol, I had been reminding myself every day that sign-ups were gonna go live yesterday and to go and do so once they were...except yesterday, when I forgot :P. Have done now, though. I see Silverleaf has signed up too, so you're definitely coming then, yay :D.
I will be there on my own till about 1pm when I will head back to Victoria to meet Ja'Ph - we'll then have a quick KFC for lunch and head back over :).
How does this work? Should I RSVP? I want to make sure I do it right and don't mess it up! :)
From these two quotes, I think you're already booked in as a special celebrity guest star.
Paul,
Just to confirm what Matchstickman said. As you're not UK-based and will only really be turning up this one event, you can bypass the RSVP system. It's all cool.
From the e-mail the organiser sent me
if they're visitors, they're allowed to just show up and bypass the RSVP system entirely. Tell them we'll be happy to have them!
So it's all arranged and you and your wife just need to show up.
EDIT: Just to be clear, I didn't tell Jeff you were connected with a games company, just that you were a couple of Americans I knew who wanted to drop in for a game or two.
Ok cool! Well, we shall drop by as soon as we can on Saturday. I'm really looking forward to it!
Also... I will be around in London most of next week as well as the weekend. My wife and I are doing touristy stuff during the day, but I am sure that she will want to go to bed early, and I will wander London checking out various pubs etc. If anyone is interested, I would love to meet up of an evening to hang out / play games / chat / etc if anyone is up for it. Let me know!
Paul,
London on Board also do week-evening events. Not at the same pub as the weekend, though. Let me know if you're interested in any details.
Right, we're getting there. RSVPed to the Meetup, accomodation booked, just transport to organise now and we're good to go! Woo!
@pwatson Sure!
I just had an e-mail from Jeff (the guy running LoB) saying that the Old Star have cancelled all meet-ups for the next three weeks due to "paid bookings" or something. New plan?
I guess we wait to see if LoB find a new venue, and if not then we find one for ourselves, no harm in making a contigency plan sooner rather than later though 
Much easier to find a spot for seven or eight of us to hang out and play Sentinels for a couple of hours than for the whole 50-odd turnout. Where do you guys normally meet on the Sentinels days that you organise, or are those usually within LoB too?
I am happy to show up anywhere in Greater London that I can get to using the tube :)
I'd prefer somewhere reasonably close to Victoria, not only because it's where I'll be arriving but because I'll have to go back there at lunchtime to meet Ja'Ph' when he arrives after work, so the less time it takes to get there and back, the better :).
Not that this thread is any of my business *sigh'...
Just in case that you guys have to find a new venue and nobody has a better idea, there is a pub in Southwark called The Lord Nelson (okay, so that isn''t really close to Victoria, unless you are looking at it from a global level, but still...).
I can vouch for the fact that they are very tolerant towards boardgamers, provided that they buy drinks. I have my birthday party there every year (where we do nothing but boardgame there for over 9 hours) and they are really cool about it. You'd need to mail them in advance, and tell them: "Look, we are 7 people from a boardgaming group and we are looking for a place to play boardgames and drink between x and y o'clock. Can you reserve a table or two for us in the back?" and they'll be cool with it, unless they're totally booked out. The drinks are apparently not bad, and they also do food until 5 o'clock which apparently is not bad either (although I've never tried it).
It's a fun little bar, nice atmosphere, ususally not to loud and it's geek-proof.
The wallpaper sucks, though.
Near Victoria's best for us too, since we're only getting to the coach station at 10am.
In seraching, I have found a couple of chain pubs near Victoria The Willow Walk, (a JDW) and the Jugged Hare (a Fullers). I can give either, or both, a call and see how they feel about 10-12 of us monopolising a couple of tables all day. Won't confirm in case Jeff manages to organise something but it would give us a fallback position.
Insert rant about London not functioning as intended whenever I visit it.
That sounds good PW, a fallback plan is probably sensible.
Yeah, sounds good - both those places are just down the road from Victoria too, which is good :).
@Julia
From my perspective, *you're* close to Victoria :P
Why is everyone so obsessed with being closer to this Victoria person?
I'm just throwing out there that I am pretty easy going with the arrangements and will get where ever the majority decides.
Because we love her.
All,
We're on for the Jugged Hare, from when it opens 11am to when it closes 11pm, although I know I'm not staying quite that late. If Jeff gets something awesome organised for LoB, I'll cancel and sort things out.
Just a word of warning: It's FA Cup Final on Saturday, so while the football's on, and possibly afterwards depending on theresult, things will get loud.
Bleh. Well, maybe the pub is big enough that we can manage to be far enough away from the TV and anyone watching it that it won't get in the way of gameplay too much :). Nice that we do have an alternate venue, though, even if it does have Football in it ;).
Cool! I will be there at some point! I am really looking forward to seeing you all again :)
Do we need to do anything to re-register our interest? I can't find it on the LoB site.
The new pub is just 0.4 miles away from Victoria Station, 7 minutes walk.
Nope. This is a purely Sentinels fan event. It's what I managed to organise, so it's just some tables at the Jugged Hare reserved in my name (Paul Watson). I told them we'd be playing some games, and they said that wouldn't be a problem.
EDIT: However, if LoB find something suitable for the 17th, I'll probably suggest we go to that instead. but this is in case that doesn't happen.
Well done that man!
Yay! Thanks PW!
Now who wants to meet us at Victoria to walk to this place?
I've checked the route on the Google-little-orange-man-Street-View thingy so I know how to get there (it's more or less literally just down the road). I can meet you if you like - I haven't checked train times yet but I'd planned on getting to the pub for 11am.
We will head that way as soon as we are done doing tourist-y things in Westminster :)
So who's bringing games? We're definitely bringing the requested Dixit, and a few small things - don't want to travel hundreds of miles loaded down with big boxes!
I'm bringing a game.
Yay!
GSF? ;)
I wil be bringing:
SotM, obviously, including home printed Cauldron and self-created cards, without art.
Pompeii, 4-player game of throwing your opponents into a volcano.
Get Bit, mind reading game of avoiding the sharks
Collessium, bidding game on monster combat
Transamerica
7 Wonders
Maybe Dominion, but that's heavy so if there's a demand only.
Oh, I have Get Bit too! I also have a crappy home-printed copy of the Sharkspansion, which is quite fun.
I'm planning on bringing:
Coloretto
Tiny Epic Kingdoms (Kickstarter PnP, not on general release yet)
Ice Weasels
Hanabi (my rethemed version)
Probably a couple of other tiny games, depending on bag space.
I've heard of Dominion (I've seen it compared to Ascension a few times on here - Ascension is fun and was our favourite of the games we own until Sentinels arrived so maybe I'll like Dominion too?) and Hanabi (no idea what that one's about though) but I don't think I've ever heard of any of the rest. I'm more interested in co-operative stuff, and not so much games that encourage "lol I beat you" or "hey let's gang up on that player" attitudes :).
Btw Silverleaf, if you wanted to meet at Victoria I expect we can arrange that - there are plenty of trains I can get in order to arrive at various times if you're gonna be there early. Otherwise I'll just aim for whichever train gets me there at close enough to 11am that I have time to get to the Jugged Hare for opening time :).
Fine, I'll consider breaking my back to carry all the games in. ;-)
Hanabi's pretty cool - it's a co-operative game where you have to collectively play cards in order from 1 to 5 in each of five colours. You get three "lives" so you can't make many mistakes. The difficulty is in that you are not allowed to see your own cards, and can only communicate with others about their cards with limited information, e.g. "Those three cards are red," or "you have no fours". It's really hard, but interesting.
Having played both Dominion and Ascension a fair bit against AI on my phone, I can say that Dominion has much less theme, but less swinginess since the cards you can buy are in 10 piles of 10 rather than an ever-shifting central row, and there's only one kind of currency. I like both, but I think Dominion is the better game - many people disagree with me though!
We'll be arriving at Victoria Coach Station at 10.10, but I'm not sure if we're planning to check into our hotel right away or if we'll do that later. Probably easiest to meet at the pub?
Aww, wish I could make it to this, what with being a Londoner, but this is one of the only weekends when I’m not in London. 
I played Pompeii at my regular club a couple of days ago, it was ok and I’d certainly play it again. A light game where you position people around the town so that you can get them out as quick as possible before the volcano goes boom. The only problem with it was that one or two turns into the second phase it was obvious who was and wasn’t going to win which deflated things a bit. We still had fun trying to mess with the inevitable though. It’s a real old school Euro, and we had a lot of debate as to how it would likely be designed differently in the modern age (hidden variable VPs on the ‘people’ would have made a massive difference)
Hanabi is great fun, particularly if you have a terrible memory for hidden information like me! 7 wonders is good as it is very scalable depending on the number of players. Anybody have a copy of Love Letter? I bought one from a friend but haven’t received it yet, it’s a nice quick filler that is also scalable and I do like it a lot.
Sociable/Party games sound like the best fit for the day so I will bring Nanuk as it is another small box game that is a good laugh with a large group. I have a feeling that we will mostly be playing Sentinels and whatever Paul happens to bring with him though!
Thanks for reminding me, Mezike. Love Letter is also in the bag.
And so is a battered copy of Kingsburg.
Also, I expect Sentinels is what we'll be playing mostly, but as it'll be a long day, alternatives are good and Paul may, somehow, be bored wtih Sentinels and prefer a variety once we play his game a couple of times.
And to warn you all, I do have homemade characters I'm interested in playtesting for Sentinels. You have been warend. ;-)
Yes, but I’m sure not bored of playing Sentinels with Paul yet
Silverleaf, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you weren't allowed to tell people something they don't have in Hanabi.
I see I was playing with the old rules, which don't specify that you can't give null clues. Examples I saw on the 'geek and other places included these types of clues too. Just looked at the latest rules and you're right - they say you have to point at appropriate cards and pointing at no cards is not allowed.
I'm not sure that null clues would break the game though, to be honest, but I haven't played very much.
Hanabi sounds...complicated. But I tend to do badly at understanding rules explanations of games I've never played if I don't have the game in front of me to go through it at the time. Oh well, maybe I can have a go at some of these other games during breaks in the Sentinels marathon I think we're likely to be engaging in ;).
Hanabi is a lot of fun and not too complex at all, it’s probably a lot easier when you see it in front of you than from descriptions here.
People, I am excepting pictures. That is all.
I know this is off-topic, but I had to poke my head in here, as Dominion was my addiction just before Sentinels (though I still have three expansions of Dominion to acquire…in time) - I agree completely that Dominion is a better game, primarily because there are more options for strategy and more chances for player interaction. Also it feels better paced unless you have more than four people playing.
If you want to try something that is very themed but has more deckbuilding options than Ascension offers, you might try Thunderstone. It has little in the way of player interaction, unfortunately, but I found the game mechanics (darkness penalties, physical vs. magic attack, heroes, weapons, items, spells, villagers, and some more) to be more interesting in Thunderstone. It does tend to be a bit slower than other deckbuilders though.
Excepting them for what?
EDIT: D'Oh, I am being stupid. expecting.
Stupid auto-correct on my phone. I keep thinking I double-ckeck it, but…
*expecting
Exceptional pictures will no doubt be posted!
I really hope that was intentional. Or maybe I don't
These are the people you play with? *shakes head*
http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/173677/london-on-board-box-cover-quotes-pithy-reviews-fro
Well, looking forward to tomorrow, in which from the looks of it I'm gonna be playing plenty of Sentinels plus a whole load of games I've never even heard of. And Dixit, which I have heard of but have never played. Same for Dominion, actually.
Sorry everyone, I won't make it tomorrow - I've got too much to sort out at home this weekend after having two rooms without working plug sockets for a week or so. Hope you have a great time, and I hope to catch some of you in the real world soon
Right, 5.5 hours of sleep for us, then we're on our way. Yay!*
* Not yay for lack of sleep, of course. Yay for people and gaming.
Twice Yay!
I am out with the family today then will swing by sometime after lunch.
Excitement levels set to Exception!
For info, the reserved seats are upstairs.
Whee, it was a good day :D. Played a bunch of games (personally I played Colossal Arena, Dixit, Dobble, Nanuk, and of course Sentinels...I feel like I've forgotten a game but I can't think what), and though Paul brought GSF with him, by the time everyone was getting set up to play it unfortunately it had got a bit late and due to travel times (and being hungry), Ja'Ph' and I left before they got started. Still, maybe in a few more weeks I'll have my copy so we can play it then :).
So, didn't get round to playing any Dominion. I'd actually forgotten about it till about five minutes after we left. Oh well, maybe some other time.
Pew pew pew!
That's the sound the lasers made on my ship when I played Galactic Strike Force on Saturday. Paul (and assumedly the rest of the >G crew, unless Paul was being naughty, in which case I just blew your cover, sorry Paul) brought along a copy of GSF, and gave it to London On Board for their library, huzzah for >G!
Unfortunately when Paul got back with GSF it was nearly closing time so we got in 25-50% of a game but from what I saw it's a fun game with a lot of variety.
Paul's wife Maia was there and we played a lot of games with her, she's a lot of fun. Did you know they met while hitting one another with swords?
The Jugged Hare was quiet a nice pub, bit loud due to the football but that was to be expected, they had a lot of space and upstairs (where we were) never seemed to fill up so it never seemed like we were squatting in space they would have otherwise used.
Arg! I just realised we didn't take any photos.
There were no photos because it didn't really happen, everything having been a figment of Silverleaf's extraordinarily over active imagination… 
Just for the record, if it had happened then I would have been both proud and pleased to have met all you guys in person and I would have no doubt had a great time playing a bunch of games (although surprisingly little Sentinels), although I couldn't say for sure as we may or may not have really been there.
Andy is probably right about everybody being super nice, but I wouldn't know due to the intangible nature of reality surrounding this presumed event. This is what happens when glitter monkeys become involved.
I do hope that nobody takes exception to the lack of photos.
Blame the glitter monkey.
I always do, Silverleaf. I always do.
That being said, despite a lack of pictures, this imaginary event was lovely! Thank y'all so much for having us and playing games. Dixit was super fun even if you people have never seen Gilligan's Island. 
As was… that one yelling game with the pictures… that one, lots of fun.
That was Dobble.
Glad you and Paul enjoyed your imaginary time with us.
That'd be Dobble, which I believe is also called Spot It. It's way more fun that you expect it to be, and I thought it was interesting that people who were particularly good at one mini-game could be so bad at another. ;)
And it was a great day, lovely to meet so many awesome people!
Ninjaed! Curse you Mr Watson!
