A New Game Store in Town

 “Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend — or a meaningful day.”

— Dalai Lama

During the Thanksgiving holiday, as local merchants sought to promote business for the gift-giving season, my wife discovered a new game store in town. BrickHammer Hobbies apparently just opened that week and was still pulling things together, but took advantage of the crowds of holiday shoppers wandering Culpeper’s quaint main retail street that Thanksgiving weekend dominated by Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. I’m encouraged, of course, but wary; since moving to Culpeper 20 years ago (I still can’t believe it’s been that long), two other game stores have opened and met their inglorious demise...though we’ve recently had some gaming-adjacent stores open. I stopped by to check out BrickHammer Hobies and make a small purchase...and it started me thinking how I might support the store beyond simply being an occasional customer.

The stores on Culpeper’s East Davis Street represent the high-end merchants who bolster the town’s reputation as a quaint place to visit, eat, and shop for weekend daytrippers coming from the metro DC region and elsewhere in Virginia: places like The Cameleer gift shop, The Frenchman’s Corner, Raven’s Nest coffee house, Pepperberries gifts, and, of course, the near-infamous It’s About Thyme restaurant. Rents are not cheap for the often narrow spaces fronting the street. Over the years the neighborhood has seen a progression of stores come and go, like any good commercial district; we’ve found and lost a few places we really liked.

If it wasn’t for the sandwich board outside the storefront I might have walked right past BrickHammer Hobbies on any other day. But the windows filled with huge game boxes for Games Workshop titles caught my eye, too. The owners proved savvy for the Thanksgiving shopping holidays, placing an island of puzzles front-and-center as one walked in, with the more adventure gaming hobby fare deeper in the store and along the walls. It wasn’t crammed to the gills with merchandise like some well-established game stores, but it offered a good range of games and supplies to tempt both grognards and newcomers: the expected Games Workshop products, a few Warlord Games historical miniatures boxes, Star Wars: Shatterpoint and Legion games and expansions, a bookshelf of roleplaying games (mainly Pathfinder and a few assorted others), a solid selection of board games reflecting recent mainstream titles, more puzzles and a few models, and some racks of Army Painter and GW modeling supplies and paints. Four tables at the back provided space for open gaming and demonstrations. I’m a bad judge of space, so I won’t estimate the square footage, but examining online maps gives me a rough estimate of about 600-700 square feet. Staff was friendly and talkative, encouraged by the holiday shoppers who wandered inside to see what everything was all about, and hopeful for expanding business and local gaming community.

I’m not always in a good place to make huge purchases or buy into massive new games with hordes of figures to assemble and paint, but I was happy to find modeling supplies to help me with my existing projects and purchases. BrickHammer carries a nice array of Army Painter supplies which usually support my miniatures habit with brushes, paints, primers, and varnish. The obligatory GW section can keep me in Nuln Oil for my washes when I’m not using my MinWax stain for “dipping” figures. It’s a convenience to drive 10 minutes into town for these things instead of a one-hour trek out to the “local” game store that stocks these supplies.

Community Support

BrickHammer Hobbies has been in business less than a month and is still finding its way; but I hope it starts exploring new ways to bring people into the store soon. They announced a Lego free-to-play zone and tried a few game demos. I’m hoping the store starts posting some events online. I didn’t notice any bulletin board in the store where people could seek other interested players for their games. The store hours — open until 8 p.m. most nights, 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays — certainly seem built to encourage early evening play most nights, especially on the weekends.

I am not an extrovert, despite my occasional forays into public presentation and game demonstrations. So I’ve not introduced myself as a local game enthusiast (beyond my role as a customer). But I’m interested in supporting the store beyond my basic purchases if the opportunity seems right. Although I like promoting the hobby and serving as a “gaming ambassador,” I want to make sure my efforts are appropriate. I’d love to run my favorite games — D6 Star Wars Roleplaying Game scenarios, Pulp Egypt adventures, Skirmish Kids and Panzer Kids, try out some of my newest game acquisitions — but doing so in a store, well, I’d want to host a game folks can buy right there. It’s a dilemma I’ve considered before: I want to support a store running events, but want those activities to help sell games they have in stock.

We’ll see if I can find the courage and opportunity to run a game to help support the store. My best strategy at the moment remains one I’ve used in the past in various situations: stick back and see how things develop, then look for an event possibility that incorporates both my perspective and the store’s best interests. At the very least I hope to support BrickHammer Hobbies with my occasional game purchases as I’m able.

Games Stores Long Gone

We’ve had game stores in town in year past, but they rarely lasted very long...maybe two years at best. Years ago one opened in a shopping center; we thought it would be primarily comics, but games took center stage, with shelves of board games and popular miniatures fare like the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game. Tables in the center of the store hosted frequent collectible card game tournaments as well as weekly X-wing games I joined (and at least one tournament where I won my Z-95 Headhunter expansion). It was a friendly place I felt comfortable visiting, even bringing my young son for games (and his Godzilla comic book series). I supported it with my purchases and relevant event participation for a year or so before it abruptly closed. Apparently the partners who owned the store had some conflict or betrayal or some other issues that forced the store to go under, liquidating the stock and even the fixtures within a day or two.

The other store that opened a few years later did not impress me from the start. It suffered from an odd location at the southern end of Main Street, awkward and limited parking, and it’s combination of game store and vape shop (and maybe something else, I can’t recall). I think I bought the 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons starter set there on my one time checking it out. I never got a good vibe from the staff or owners. Even early on the entire place reeked of vape. It was not the kind of place where I’d hang out and game, let alone bring my son.

I’ll offer honorable mentions to some game-adjacent stores, not on East Davis Street but close enough on Main and East Streets. The Collector’s Den opened a few years ago on East Street, a small space offering a smattering of products geared toward collectors: card games, figures, dice, used console games, and some GW stuff. We stop in now and then to look around. Final Boss opened on Main Street about a year ago after testing the market in a few other, smaller locations. They deal primarily in used console games and consoles; we bought my son his PS2 and PS3 there, along with some accessories. The store also branched out to offer some current D&D books and dice along with comic books and other geeky fare. The staff is friendly and very focused on customer satisfaction. Both stores offer small gathering areas and foster a calendar of regular gaming events mostly catering to Magic: The Gathering, the Pokemon card game, and occasionally open gaming.

Best Wishes

BrickHammer Hobbies is still finding its way, figuring out its customer base, and trying to fit into a town on the conservative Virginia frontier. The store website needs work: hours would be nice for reference and a schedule of upcoming in-store events might help draw customers. I’ll watch for relevant events to support...and of course I’ll stop in occasionally for supplies and to look around. Here’s hoping they find their gamer community and succeed in business.

I’m hoping BrickHammer Hobbies succeeds. It’s the closest to an adventure gaming store in town and might save me the longer trips to “local” game stores farther afield. I certainly enjoy the occasional pilgrimage — when I have the spare cash — to some of my favorite if distant game stores, but that’s become more of a luxury lately. It’s comforting having a store with the essentials, new releases, and a nice variety right in otown.

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

— T. S. Eliot