Sunday, May 29, 2011

Report from Barcelona

Barcelona was named after Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal's dad.  For Hannibal it would have been the last Carthaginian city before entering Gaul on the way to take on the Romans.

Wargaming is pretty popular here.  I found the Alpha-Ares Wargames Club.  They have a big space over two levels with lots of tables permanently set up on both levels.  I think they have a couple of hundred members but I was there on a quiet night - Barca FC was going to win the European Cup later (and consequently there is a great deal of yahooing & hornblowing going on in the street outside as I write this).

English isn't as common here as in France, but I found a couple of guys who could speak a bit of English. 

Big old fashioned board games seem to be the biggest thing here - there were several mega board games set up and in progress (with plastic covers to preserve them between meetings), including WWII, WWI, ACW & Medieval.  FOW is very popular, though I wasn't there on FOW night & didn't see any games in progress.   They also do Napoleonics & ancients miniatures.  There was a big Napoleonic game left set as a diarama on one table.  There is a coven of fantasy players, but it seems much in the minority. 

The local wargames shop reflects what I saw at the club - it has huge range of FOW, some ancient, ECW & Napoleonic miniatures, lots of boardgames, a little fantasy, lots of books.  Not a bad shop, but unfortunately they had nothing I needed to buy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

FC barcelona 3 rooney 1

Jim Gandy said...

And boy do the Catalans know how to celebrate !

Anonymous said...

its easy when you buy all the best players

2007 Ford E Series Van AC Compressor said...

enjoyed your post. It’s a lot like college – we should absorb everything we can but ultimately you need to take what you’ve learned and apply it.