Tabletop Times With Oliver

With the focus of this edition on South Australia and the things that make our city great, I thought it an excellent opportunity to mention some of the fantastic places around that have helped me and my friends get super into some of our games, where we pick up our supplies, and gather for the occasional game.

I think my first mention should be the place we go the most, and that would have to be Good Games in the city. There are a couple of things that make this place a standout for me and my friends. The first is the ability to buy “singles” there. That’s single cards from trading games, in our case usually magic the gathering. They don’t have the most extensive collection in the world, but they have almost all the staples you’d need to build a deck and offer really good rates for trading in other cards you have. The second thing good games have going for it is the space they have. They offer loads of table room, with the tables upstairs sometimes taken for tournaments. There are tables downstairs, and two separate rooms, one set up for tabletop gaming that we’ve used for Warhammer, and one with a table for dungeons and dragons (and other RPG’s I’m sure). Overall Goodgames is a great store, with super friendly staff, and I’ve never had a bad experience there.

Second up for our group is Dragon’s Lair! There’s one on south road that I’ve been to a fair few times, and one in Salisbury that I’ve only been to a couple of times. The Salisbury one is bigger but is often fairly busy. The one on south road I found to have everything I need, a good selection of Warhammer models and super friendly staff.

Again they offer tables to play games, although not as many as Goodgames, and I can’t say I’ve used them, although they seem like a good option. I think the only reason I would put good games ahead is the slightly more extensive Magic The Gathering stock they have, although honestly I love both places.

Finally, and I suppose as a bit of a cop out, I would like to shout out Game Traders. I know they are a big company that don’t exactly need the attention, but when I first started playing magic back in 2014, it was at the Game Traders at Marion when that used to be there. The staff were great, and so were the people, taking their time to explain the game and all. Now that the one at Marion is gone, there is one at colonnades that is equally as friendly, and there is a table there to play on. While we’ve only played there once, the fact that it is in a shopping centre does sometimes mean you’ll have spectators, which honestly I don’t mind. They have few singles, and a small range of stuff, but considering they sell a lot of things, I think it’s not a bad selection, and sometimes I wonder about heading back there to see if they still host magic nights.

As a parting mention, all these stores offer nights to play pretty much any card game, and they all offer dungeons and dragons nights as well! So, if you’re thinking of getting into these games, I think these are some spectacular places to start. Flinders also has a tabletop club where they play board games and RPG’s. Any students can join and participate, and it could be a safe space to start playing with likeminded people.