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Published on March 28th, 2014 | by Colin

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Cardcore Gamer: You know you’re a board gamer if…

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Every hobby has its rewards, be it a stamp collection, or the skulls of your enemies, but here are some things only board gamers will appreciate.

1. Punch board therapy

Most new games come with at least one sheet of pre-cut cardboard tokens which need to be punched out of their sprue before you can play. For a board gamer, this produces a zen-like catharsis far beyond popping bubble wrap, or kicking stupid people in the shins. You have to be careful, methodical and calm, savouring each and every cleanly-removed piece as it plunks down safely into the box lid, but punching tokens does have a dark side: Poorly cut token sheets with chits that might rip, or de-laminate, or worse still, misprints! Horrible, aberrant freaks! OH GOD, THEY’RE PRINTED OFF-CENTRE!

2. High on plastic

Now that all the tokens are free from their cardboard prison, it’s time to rip open the freshly sealed bags of lovely plastic figures, pawns, or psychedelic wildebeest dripping newspaper joy from an old man’s eye.

Wait, hang on…

It’s unhealthy and possibly illegal, but you’ve just been realityjacked by China’s finest toxic fumes! Some games are so stacked full of vapour-steeped playing pieces that the box may well need an industrial exorcist to evict the smell. It’s great to get that ‘new game buzz’ but plastic fumes? Just Say No, kids!

Punchboard

Yeeeaaaaaah that was the good chit!

3. Bags and bags of…bags

Freedom! game bits everywhere, now to get serious…ly organised! Out come enough ziplock baggies to embarrass a teenage stoner and you soon remember how ‘organised’ quickly bypasses ‘anal’ and becomes ‘obsessive': If there are only two of a particular chit, do you bag them together, or bung them in with something else? Do you bag up decks of cards? What if the baggies are different sizes, or if you don’t have quite enough? And why, oh why are so many game box inserts so maddening useless? Just follow this one simple rule: If you decide to bag up the players, you may well have gone too far.

4. Literature

Ah, the rule book! Like any intellectual, you sit down with a cup of tea, a tumbler of fine whiskey, or maybe a tin mug of toilet hooch, and turn the first page of a work with the capacity to challenge the mind and provoke intriguing questions. Questions  such as: ‘What the hell does that mean?’, or ‘Doesn’t that example contradict the rules?’, or perhaps even ‘Why is there not an index?’. Of course, like any intellectual, you nod sagely to yourself and pretend that you understand it all perfectly.

5. Fartbox

Many board game boxes produce impressive farting sounds when you push the lid down. The variation is staggering; some are deep and sombre and some high-pitched and squeaky and I am 31 years old AND I LAUGH EVERY TIME.

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