As it is my birthday on Thursday this week, this weekend the family gathered at the ancestral home for a couple of meals and many hours of gossip and high jinks!

I was searching for something in a cupboard in my old room when I came across the box of the board game "Cosmic Encounter".

Now this wasn't the original game that I first played at school, I think, the box of which is shown on the right, but the slightly later Games Workshop version shown below, that dates back to the time when GW sold all sorts of fantasy role-playing and board games, some of which they produced themselves outside of any accepted canon.

Well with the kids now just about in their tweens, this was too good an opportunity to miss, and soon the board was set up, the rules re-read and explained to the younglings, and it was off we went.

Amazing fun. We had two hilarious afternoons of playing...with all the usual Cosmic Encounter agreements, disagreements, assurances, reassurances, alliances, broken alliances, backstabbing, and politics!

Youngest player was ten, oldest player was, er, me (firmly within the 45-54 bracket!) and all the old favourites came out. We shuddered at the Void, were gobsmacked at the Virus' numbers, ganged up on the Judge (unsuccessfully, I might add), hated the Amoeba, loved the Healer and so on and so forth.

Now whilst I wouldn't necessarily recommend spending the £45 or so that the modern version of the game costs, I would heartily suggest having a dig around in the cupboards at home to see what you can find...especially if, like me, you first visited Games Workshop when it was at 1, Dalling Road, and nowhere else.

Now to try and find Apocalypse the Game of Nuclear Devastation!