LGS Spotlight: The Dragon's Den

by Luke Melia

We recently checked out the new gaming store in Short Pump, Virginia, The Dragon's Den.  I have never written a spotlight article for a gaming store in Richmond because none have ever given me the friendly, professional feeling.  In many cases, the owners or folks behind the counter couldn't give a damn if you were in there or not.  So I would like to share our experience in The Dragon's Den on a pretty busy Sunday afternoon.

I walked in with my son, Alex, and we were greeted by the guy behind the counter immediately with "Hello, how are you doing today?  Welcome to the Dragon's Den"  Good start so far.  I ask if they carry Flames of War to which sadly he tells me "no, but if you are interested in something we can special order just about anything and have it here in a few days."  He then tells me some of the other games they have including Games Workshop and Yugioh cards, to my son's delight.  After about 10 minutes of looking around in the board game section, we are approached by another associate, whom we find out is Scott, one of the owners who offers to help us.  I asked him some questions about some board games and he starts giving recommendations of different games and offers some good insight into making our purchase. 

We had the opportunity to make a little shop talk (pun intended) and I was very impressed.  They have a large eBay store and also buy and sell "vintage" games.  There was a pretty good crowd in the shop for a Sunday with folks playing Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering and there were even folks running demo games.  Jon and I got into Mage Wars and although we were not too impressed with the game, I thought it was pretty cool that we got a chance to demo the game.  Jon ended up buy Eclipse and the expansion and I bought Game of Thrones, a plethora of Yugioh cards and a bag of paints.  I can honestly say I would not have purchased a thing if we had not such a great experience in the store.

So they don't have Flames of War which is a bummer.  However, I could not get over the fact that they were truly a Friendly Professional Game Store.  The folks working there are engaged in their business and genuinely care about who and what is going on in their store.  If you get a chance, stop by and see them.


I told Alex no on this one.  Three different types of Monopoly is enough.

Demo table.  Wow.