Fellow board gamer, why not pull up a pew and chat …. Drat Internet why don’t you let people pull up a pew and have a chat?!

So you want to know about me? Well you’ve probably come to the right place if you want to know everything board games.

Board games came into my life at an early age, although in card game form, my grandparents often offered “to look after the grandkids and play some card games”. Card games that for a 5 year old offered challenge such as a cribbage and quickly an equal level playing field with the adults before long we progressed to chess, besting my grandparents and other relatives, while my cousins sat playing video games I sat with the adults playing card games. OKAY I’m no board game master mind, but let me have my moment? Please

Fast forward a few years, and I’ve discovered Gamesworkshop! The Horror, at the prices anyway. Amassing multiple unpainted armies was the way I played, card games at my grand parents turned into weekend long battles for riverdell. Then I discovered video games for a while..

Queue 2007, I walk into Waterstones and spot Carcassonne for the measly price of £16.99, I buy it take it home and after some disapproval from my dad, my family agree to try it out. Two boxes and many expansions later, I wonder is this it? Carcassonne, how you’ve spoiled me, but I long for more. Then I discovered boardgamegeek!

My family (my mum and brother) were in for a ‘treat’, discovering titles such as Agricola Never Again (3 times I’ve owned and played that game), Dixit, Blokus, Survive Escape from Atlantis and Labyrinth, my collection spiralled. I bought game after game (see my previously owned), my collection spread out to shelf after shelf, buying games unwrapping them and leaving them on the shelf to maybe one day play them. A battle with cancer in 2012 only heightened this addiction, with a heavy wallet emptying across kickstarter but as the battle was won, I took a retrospective look at all those games on my shelves. I did admittedly have a little splurge following a cancer scare in October 2019 (which considering I had been unemployed for quite some time, was a bad idea), but we’re now in the process of continual refinement as there’s several games we really don’t enjoy enough to warrant keeping.

Preston Board Gamer’s was my home for a while, where my gaming interest peaked for a while, before I ran off to Germany for 16 months. To rediscover chess, playing it in my lunch breaks, while 100’s of board games sat available in the stores just around the corner, we played chess! I started a board game night with some success, but my time and employment contract was coming to an end, so I was England Bound.

Returning home to my games and Preston Board Gamer’s allowed me to partly fall back in love with board games, but it was clear that board gaming nights had become somewhat cliché and alienating for myself and alot of other people. I almost stopped gaming completely, I was close to pressing the post button on listing my whole collection. How I’m glad I didn’t.

But if it wasn’t for those game nights, I wouldn’t of met the likes of Fred and Paul, who I gamed regularly with for the best part of two years. Allowing me to explore campaign driven games such as secrets of the lost tomb, perdition’s mouth and more, Monday nights were some of my favourite gaming nights. And I wouldn’t of discovered Netrunner, which to this very day still remain my number 1 game of all time, sadly I have no desire to play it within the tournament scene again.

I still had that group itch though, to get that weekly gaming night with more people and to share this great hobby. At the start of 2017 Preston’s Gamers Guild was founded by myself and Dave K. Fast forward to 2023 and we’ve got 30+ people playing board games a week, we’ve managed to pull off multiple all day events, raise over £9,000 for charity and have more planned! And some 12,000 followers!

Board Gaming now sits as a hobby, a passion and my evening go to. I’d rather pick up a board game over a TV show, especially with the amount of cabbage brain numbing reality TV that exists.

Board games have become my passion, my go to. Although I still love a evening painting. I’ve clocked some 450 plays this year.

My collection is now somewhat refined, but perfect? No, far from it. But it’s a collection I look at and I’m relatively happy with, there’s a few grail games I’d love to add but their Out of Print and queue out of print prices are a little off-putting. I’m capping for the moment the collection at 70 games excluding expansions, I tend to give a game three plays before deciding whether or not to keep it.