Boardgames Old and New

These were games for sale - there are now only three left

Four ‘bonus’ games - really pleased with all of them and I remember playing Sirocco ‘back in the day’ - in this case the mid to late 1980s!

Of the four I was originally looking at only the two Tank Duels and Seas of Thunder are in the box above - Dark Sands I have sold. Note the two Flying Colours expansions

Some time ago I picked up a copy of the Columbia Games block based board game Combat Infantry, the WW2 squad level game of tactical battles set in 1944 in north west Europe. It features the US and Germans and a further volume (which I have yet to get) covers the eastern front from 1941 to 1945. I picked this up from a chap that lives around twenty minutes from that was working through the disposal of his father’s collection. At the time he had a huge selection of mint, unopened and unplayed military board games covering everything from Command and Colours Ancients through to modern ‘Cold War turned hot’ actions. For a curious reason the vast majority of these games were produced the American games company GMT.

His father had connections with a number of gaming companies and indeed, helped out at a number of the big American game conventions back in the day, hence the GMT angle - he has advised them on multiple occasions that his father is no longer around but games still arrive occasionally with the latest being Under the Southern Cross. He believes that this avenue is now closed but will let me know if anything else turns up!

Two standalone expansions for Flying Colours - the age of sail fleet action boar game

And the back of the boxes - I wish I still had the base game so a swift trawl of the net may be in order!

The chap’s father also had a huge collection of role playing material - that was his main passion - along several thousand vinyl albums from his days of being a DJ during the 1980s.

Anyways, after much thought and consideration I asked him to set aside a couple (in fact four - call it a kind of mission creep….) for collection at a later date as I was engaged in raising some gaming finances. Where possible I try and finance my hobby myself in that I tend to sell stuff off to buy new stuff as the mood takes me. This is probably why my collection is relatively modest in size!

The day of collection was drawing near and still his list of games showed little sign of diminishing, despite his advertising them in various places. I had offered to help him with the disposals but he seemed happy to ‘wait it out’ until they went although when his personal circumstances changed it then became rather more urgent. The prices he was asking for the games were very modest and considering all were in unplayed and unpunched condition there were some real bargains to be had. As I had been in regular contact with him he came to me with a price for the whole lot - again very modest but still a big chunk of money to lay out. I wrestled with the idea of this for a couple of weeks but, after a few disposals had a sufficient war chest to ‘pull the trigger’.

So I did.

On Wednesday I collected four boxes of board games - thirty in all - which included the four I was after and some extras he threw in for good measure. He admitted that virtually all of these games were free in that they were sent to his father as review or goodwill copies which is why he could be very modest in the prices he charged but he now needed the space as they were clearing out his father’s house and for a variety of reasons could not spend the time sorting through stuff for selling. As he observed there are bargains to be had!

He mentioned that his father also played a lot of DBA and similar in 25mm and had a substantial number of painted armies and boxes of unpainted figures which he had yet to get to but willet me know when he does. Then there are books, rules and all the usual gaming paraphernalia one accumulates. He wants to sell it but will do so cheaply so that it goes to them that will appreciate it rather than ending up in landfill.

There will be more to come from this for sure but for now I am content to handle the board game side.

Of the 30 games collected I have sold 19 which has covered my initial outlay and then some meaning that the games I wanted were in effect free of charge. Of the remaining 11 there are 3 that are still up for grabs meaning that my collection has grown by 8 games that have not cost me a bean other than the time spent to list on various Facebook groups and then the packing and posting - which, along with some disposals from Eric’s collection - will take up pretty much all of this weekend!

More on the games I am keeping when I eventually get around to cracking them open.

An Apology

For the record I should point out that usually I would post of any disposals on here first of all but in this case time was of the essence as I needed to get the funds back in the Imperial coffers with all speed.

What a week!