EXCERPT
An intersection of events reminded me of a gaming buddy who first taught me VINHOS years back. My first foray into the world of Lacerda.

Last week, Facebook popped up a birthday reminder for a good gaming buddy of mine. Facebook pops up lots of birthday reminders daily so what made this one special?

Coz last Sat was our planned 1st Lacerda Meetup session (sessrep) and this buddy of mine, Nicola happens to be the person who first taught me how to play VINHOS, back in 2011. That’s my first Lacerda game!

Let me re-tell why this VINHOS session is so unforgettable!

This was on one of our regular Friday meetups at Old Town Kopitiam. We did a few other games that evening and by the time we settled down for Vinhos, it was already past 2:30 am (Sat). :O

Add to this being Vital’s first Euro title we are playing. Let’s just say the rules were ahem not yet streamlined.

Boardgamecafe.net had yet to bring in the English-ver copies of this game (which was under Z-man). The copy we played was Nicola’s own copy which he got from Italy before he came to KL (on project work).

Nicola’s copy is in Italian (obviously) – the Z-man English copy was almost a year late.

There’s another fella Patomas (seen below sitting opposite Nicola). He’s also here on project work and he’s from Brazil. He claimed to know some Italian. hah.

Nicola’s copy was punched out but it’s clear from the constant reference to the rulebook, he has not played thru the game nor had a good grasp of the rules yet. All our first time! Splendid.

Gaming Rules or Playthrough videos? Hello, 2011 la. 🙂

And Google Translator in 2011 is not (yet) the Google Translator in 2020. tsk tsk.

So there we were. Four of us – at 3 am (more coffee pls!) – trying to grok this convoluted game and to make sense of the Italian rulebook.

Back in 2011 – with the exception of Splotter’s titles – this is likely the 1st Euros that had so many interlocking mechanics.

I’m pretty sure in our session, the question “Again, who’s the designer for this game?” came up more than once. hahaha.

In a way we can appreciate what Vital was trying to achieve in this initial first design of his. No doubt lots of rough edges, time can only make them better. It did.

The intersection of Nicola’s birthday and our Lacerda Meetup session brought back this wonderful blast from the past.

One of the things I love about this board game community – and the biz – are the camaraderie with the many good frens we made along the way.

Nicola left KL after his project work here was over.. but we keep in touch via socmed, and when he had the chance to make a trip to Essen in 2014, he gave us a holler.

We did met in Essen, and had a great time in Spiel 2014 as if it was OTK all over again. 🙂

If you are reading this Nicola, CIAO and hope to meet up with you again in Essen sometime in the future. Love from Malaysia!

The BLAST FROM THE PAST is a series of articles that re-collects interesting scenes and events from the past 10+ years of Boardgamecafe.net in Malaysia (and beyond).