8th-9th Aug 2026 - 20th Anniversary / "think themselves accursed they were not here"
by Robin. Mon 10 Aug (Updated at Mon 10 Aug)I looked it up, and it turns out that 8th August is traditionally the feast day of St. Dominic, who is the patron saint of astronomers. And, indirectly, responsible for the name of Blackfriars railway station. But more on that later.
Anyway, as you've probably gathered, twenty years ago, one man had a vision. And lots of others were involved too, right from the start, as Nigel as ascribed excellently in his earlier post. But the spark for it all was Nigel, so he gets the principal credit on this 20th anniversary celebration.
And what a great weekend it was. For me, it was the embodiment of the club as a whole: I played a rich variety of games, of varying length and complexity, on completely different themes, with lots of really nice people. There were all sorts of games going on, all different genres, but always the opportunity to find one that I really liked. I played 3 different games, each with a completely different group of people, from those I knew and played with regularly to those who I'd never met before.
The games I really love are the richly thematic ones, and I managed to play two of those: SETI (in homage to the patron saint of astronomers) and Scarface - which was definitely the more immersive of the Scarface/Speakeasy bootlegging double-act on Sunday. And I even got to play Merchants & Marauders on Thursday (with a fleeting visit to Santo Domingo) - so it's been a super week for thematic immersion.
The other game I played was 1899 Daihan - one of at least two different 18xx games going on this weekend. Like the other one (Chesapeake), this one aims to be a shorter, sharper version of 1830: Railways & Robber Barons. Like all the 1830-style games, it's primarily a trading game, thoroughly dependent on anticipating what the other players are going to do. So we all did very badly, primarily by failing to anticipate the "nuclear option" strategy(?) pursued by Dave E. So much for game theory: he was doing badly mid-game, so decided he needed to "shake things up" by forcing the move to diesels, which meant bankrupting himself, and trying to drag us all down with him. And he did pretty well. I mean, he came last, but he did well at dragging us all down with him. Marko got away with it, but Byron and I were nearly bankrupted also. Which, to be fair, was just the kind of anarchic chaos that adds a bit of colour to a day. More good fun.
18xx is a kind of train game, by the way. The trains were in Korea, not Blackfriars. But the spirit of St. Dominic was with us still.
Anyway, for those of you who were on holiday, here's a roundup of what you missed. Great food, great people, great games. I see from Nigel's post that the club hasn't always been based in Ousebank House, but started off all the way a few doors up the road in The Cannon. But even when I started coming to the club, it was just in the one upstairs front room at Ousebank House. Since then it's gradually spread downstairs and into the side room, and this weekend we filled out the back bar (formerly the preserve of the veterans) as well. For me, at least, Ousebank House has been as much a part of the success of this club as any of the individuals Nigel mentioned. Its cheap room hire, its many good-sized rooms and bar, its friendly staff (and the military memorabilia) make it a great gaming venue. And this weekend we should call out a big thank you to Jim Campbell and the team there, who put on super service for us, with a breakfast, a barbecue and a Sunday lunch all dished up in good time to over 50 people. Long may our association there continue.
We had something like 57 people there on Saturday! and most of them were there again on Sunday. With the whole spectrum of games being played: no chance I could remember all of them, because most of the time there were about 15 simultaneous games going on. But it ranged from Scout, which was called out as a highlight in the WhatsApp chat, up to Axis & Allies Global 1940 (longest) and Lisboa (most complex?). Surely not many clubs could generate all that from within our existing membership and their friends. It turns out that, when Paul mentioned on 1st April that we'd won board games club of the month (or something), it wasn't actually true - but if there were such an award, we should certainly be winning it. And it looks like the weekend was such a success that it may even become a regular fixture. The first Ouse-Con (as we decided not to call it) of many. So yes, club members now on holiday will think themselves accursed they were not here, to game with us on St Dominic's day.
And Nigel's done a great job of calling out the contributors to the club's development over the 20 years, but I will add one more specific callout for the organising of this 20th anniversary celebration. The amount of effort that went into planning this day was huge. I did basically none of it, Ian did a fair bit, but by far and away the most was done by Paul Dent. I can't really do justice to this, but being on the admin chats and emails, I've been party to all the various organising and coordinating that had to be done, and saw Paul doing it all. He has basically organised a whole games convention. Not many of us could have done that. So while we're all enjoying our gaming let's remember that: this man has made this weekend possible. Thank you Paul.