Any gamers stationed in Hampton Roads in the 80s

[Ketza]

Will remember the gaming store "Campaign Headquarters" off Granby street near Wards corners near the Naval base.

As a young enlisted man in the Airforce I used to make the trek through the Hampton roads bridge tunnel once a week from Langley to play board games there from 1982 until 1986. That shop is where I bought all my Europa games including Fire in the East. Its also where I bought all of my squad leader games and the multitudes of trays I used to put the carefully clipped counters in.

On the weekends you could always count on several board or minatures games going where people would love for you to pull up a seat and join. In the dark halls and dingy rooms towards the back of the store was where the D&D players dwelled.

The store was full of little nooks and crannies where you could buy old magazines and misc items that strategy gamers loved.

There was always the slight smell of whatever food was brought in mixed with the starnge odor of the D&D players from the back.

The store was in an old strip center right on the main road. Parking was a bitch and you had to park on the street or behind the building in the dark. The neighborhood was a bit on the seedy side so this was a bit nerve wracking.

Even after I moved away from the area in 1990 I still would visit the store if I had the chance while in the area on business. It was sold a few times I believe and a few summers ago when I stopped by the name had been changed.

Well this past summer it was closed when I made my stop. There was still stuff in the store and it looked like they were packing for a move.

Today I had some business at the naval station and thought I would swing by on the slight chance maybe it had been brought back by another owner. To my great sadness the whole block was torn down and nothing remained but piles of rubble.

Anyone else remember this place?

[Mobeer]

seen this?
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=145334

[Titanwarrior89]

Bad news.  I know how you feel, I use to attend events,game and shop at War Games west in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  They closed up a few years ago.  They had wall to wall wargames and minitures and shipped nation wide.  Times have changed.[:o] 

[Jeffrey H.]

I have sympathy for the loss of something in your past, It's been a constant part of my gaming experience. In fact, I can't think of any game store in SoCal that lasted more than a few years. Seriously, they don't seem to be able to compete for very long. The chain type video game stroes have hung on because of consoles, and there used to be some crossover to board games but not really any longer.

We have a few good stores here in San Diego and I think LA always has had a few good stores but these places don't seem to last too long. If they want to stay in business, it's Warhammer 40k and Magic the Gathering.

[Perturabo]

There was a quite nice alternative miniature wargame store in my city - they had Warmachine, Hordes, Infinity and most importantly Flames of War.
When I wanted to get into Flames of War, it turned out that they only sell Magic the Gathering now.

There's also an old store that is there since, I don't know, I think 2000, but it's for Games Workshop stuff only and I don't like GW miniatures and their prices.

[warspite1]

When I was a kid - even into my teens and early twenties - there was a small, but decent model/toy shop in every high street parade of shops. You could guarantee a good selection of Airfix and/or Tamiya models, Scalextric cars, Hornby Railways etc etc. Good quality stuff. Then, one by one, they all disappeared [:(] There are quite simply none left....

When I was in my late teens and got into wargaming I used to love coming up to London to the Virgin shops - and even Hamleys - which had a great selection of Avalon Hill and other companies wargames. Hamleys stopped stocking serious wargames and the Virgin shops changed hands a few times and then became computer games only - and even most of those have gone.

Nothing lasts forever I guess .....Real shame though .......[&:]

[Ketza]

All the replies are awesome but has anyone ever been to the place I am describing? With all the ex navy guys that come here I would have thought a few would know what Im talking about.

The demise of the wargaming Industry is rather sad. I get my "fix" these days once a year at Historicon. I even run into a half dozen or so guys I used to hang out with at Campaign HQ from back in the day.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

Bad news.  I know how you feel, I use to attend events,game and shop at War Games west in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  They closed up a few years ago.  They had wall to wall wargames and minitures and shipped nation wide.  Times have changed.[:o] 

My wife is from Albuquerque and I had the pleasure of visiting War Games West a few times during our courtship. Very sad to hear they've gone.

I am fortunate that there are two good modelling / wargame / hobby stores of that ilk in the area where I live now. One-"The Source"-has just relocated, but is still alive. Another is more a mixture of military models and other hobby stuff, but with some wargamer hobby paraphernalia.

Sorry, Ketza-I haven't visited the store you cite. Never spent much time that way.

[Primarchx]

I'm lucky we've had our store stay so vital over the years. It's a hard business to succeed at!

[Yogi the Great]

It is sad. Can't even find decent PC or board games for that matter in almost any store.

When I was young many Hobby stores carried the board games and software stores later carried quite a few war games.

I lived near Lake Geneva where there was a little known game store at the time called TSR Hobbies. You might remember a game they invented called Dungeons and Dragons.

Yes then I attended a little gathering they had called Gen-Con in a small room at the American Legion Building there.

I've never really warmed up to Fantasy Games, but the store and the convention were a great place to find war games as well.

[cpdeyoung]

Yogi,

I see you are from Wisconsin, where I was raised. I remember going with my father to Chicago on business trips, and shopping for games at Marshall Fields. What a treat to find a new AH game! It was one of the few spots I was sure to find them.

"Hooked since Tactics Two"

Chuck

[Titanwarrior89]

You remember....so nice[:D] and Ketza Ive never been to the Hampton Store.[:(]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

Bad news.  I know how you feel, I use to attend events,game and shop at War Games west in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  They closed up a few years ago.  They had wall to wall wargames and minitures and shipped nation wide.  Times have changed.[:o] 

My wife is from Albuquerque and I had the pleasure of visiting War Games West a few times during our courtship. Very sad to hear they've gone.

I am fortunate that there are two good modelling / wargame / hobby stores of that ilk in the area where I live now. One-"The Source"-has just relocated, but is still alive. Another is more a mixture of military models and other hobby stuff, but with some wargamer hobby paraphernalia.

Sorry, Ketza-I haven't visited the store you cite. Never spent much time that way.

[Yogi the Great]

ORIGINAL: cpdeyoung

Yogi,

I see you are from Wisconsin, where I was raised. I remember going with my father to Chicago on business trips, and shopping for games at Marshall Fields. What a treat to find a new AH game! It was one of the few spots I was sure to find them.

"Hooked since Tactics Two"

Chuck

I usually purchased my Avalon Hill games by mail order, but I could find them in Milwaukee at Hobby Horse and a few other locations. I "retired" to Florida now but refuse to change where I'm from. Wisconsin will always be home.

[Ketza]

The Hampton store was small in comparison to the Norfolk store. I usually spent the extra time to go to Norfolk there was much more going on and a bigger selection.

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: Ketza

Will remember the gaming store "Campaign Headquarters" off Granby street near Wards corners near the Naval base.

As a young enlisted man in the Airforce I used to make the trek through the Hampton roads bridge tunnel once a week from Langley to play board games there from 1982 until 1986. That shop is where I bought all my Europa games including Fire in the East. Its also where I bought all of my squad leader games and the multitudes of trays I used to put the carefully clipped counters in.

On the weekends you could always count on several board or minatures games going where people would love for you to pull up a seat and join. In the dark halls and dingy rooms towards the back of the store was where the D&D players dwelled.

The store was full of little nooks and crannies where you could buy old magazines and misc items that strategy gamers loved.

There was always the slight smell of whatever food was brought in mixed with the starnge odor of the D&D players from the back.

The store was in an old strip center right on the main road. Parking was a bitch and you had to park on the street or behind the building in the dark. The neighborhood was a bit on the seedy side so this was a bit nerve wracking.

Even after I moved away from the area in 1990 I still would visit the store if I had the chance while in the area on business. It was sold a few times I believe and a few summers ago when I stopped by the name had been changed.

Well this past summer it was closed when I made my stop. There was still stuff in the store and it looked like they were packing for a move.

Today I had some business at the naval station and thought I would swing by on the slight chance maybe it had been brought back by another owner. To my great sadness the whole block was torn down and nothing remained but piles of rubble.

Anyone else remember this place?

Yep, I remember the place well. Stationed at Oceana NAS from '89 - '93 and visited many times. I had also visited two times over the last couple of years when my son had hockey tournaments in the area. Sorry to see it go.

[Ketza]

Hah! I new I would find one

I will be at Oceana next week. Its a cool base for sure.

[mstoneci]

I was stationed at Norfolk in the late '80s. I bought a lot of Battletech stuff there. It was a great shop for games and minis.

[Boomer78]

I cam surely sympathize. I bet most of us here can recall back to the 80s-90s when there more brick and mortars than we could count.

Eggheads, Babbages, EB games, Computer Supply, Best Buy, Gamestop, etc... Now Gamestop is about the only one left, if you can find one at all. And even then, they mostly just shop out the newest AAA titles and a few random used console games. The days of PC/Mac/boardgame/software shops are truly gone now.

I suspect it'll only be a few more years before just about everything is replicated or distributed over the digital world. Give it enough time and even food and water will probably be synthesized into pixels and reordered somewhere else.

[SapperAstro_MatrixForum]

Australia was a bit different in the 80's.

For Computer games, we initially had stuff all places to buy them. There used to be the odd week end market that had a computer games stall, and then came the Games Man. At least for Sydney, the Games Man was the first to really start a 'games shop' for computer games.

After that, the Games Wizard came about, and places like Grace Brothers, and other department stores started selling them. Surprisingly, the Games Man is still a going concern, but all the other (at the time) much more expansive game shops have fallen by the way side. But really, buying any PC games from an actual shop front these days is a hard thing. Reminds me of the dying days of the C64 and Amiga, with their 'section' getting smaller and smaller while the PC section grew ever larger...

Now, wargames and models (insert trains, miniatures and other assorted attached things). The main shops I remember back in the 80's (and before) are just about all gone now. My favourites were a) The Tin Soldier in the Dymocks building, Sydney. Great old shop where I bought many a wargame and enjoyed talking to old mad Harry the proprietor.

Napoleons book shop was another favourite. Here you could find all manner of wargames (even computer stuff like the old SSI and SSG games) and, of course, history books. All gone now...

For models et al, Hobbyco in Sydney (now located in the Queen Victoria building) was, and still is, the best place. It is a massive store, with everything a hobbyist could want. Even the prices are fairly reasonable. It has been going for many many years, and hopefully many years to come. Back in the 80's models and so on could be bought from even department stores. They seemed to have fallen out of favour at some point though...

My local area had very little in the way of good shops. The one shop I used to go to back in the 80's was the 'Hexagon' in Blacktown, near the train station. A funny little shop, dark and musty, with a hexagonal shape (surprise) and floor to ceiling wargames, old and new. The owner was a funny old grognard who didn't mind voicing his opinion about everything in the store, even, on one occasion, telling me the game I was about to purchase was 'crap'. Unfortunately, both he and shop (and the stock!) vanished after a major train station revamp in the early 90's...