Heroes Kingdom, St. Albans, Vermont

August 29th, 2007

No, I don’t know why Heroes Kingdom spells its name that way. That didn’t stop us from enjoying the store as a fun spot to visit on our vacation in Vermont. We stayed about half an hour away from St. Albans, and friends staying in a nearby cabin decided to visit the town one evening. They spotted the store, but because it was closed couldn’t investigate.

So we all went together a couple of days later.

Truth to tell, I haven’t spent much time in game stores, despite my passion for the hobby. Online prices always beat brick-and-mortar prices, and online information is good enough that it hasn’t seemed worth the time to me. But now, even though I won’t be back to St. Albans for a year, thanks to this store I have resolved to make time. We would up spending a total of about two hours there.

The RPG section leaves a lot to be desired. It sits on two smallish shelves and features about 95% D20 books. The board game section is small, too, but it had some good offerings. Descent tempted me, but I resisted for now. My friend grabbed Zombies!!!

I picked up both the board game–inspired Settlers of Catan Card Game and Deluxe Illuminati (which has nothing to do with board games).

The store focuses on collectible games. Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures and DC HeroClix figures (and many other collectible figure games) lined the shelves. Magic The Gathering and other collectible card games were also well represented. My other friend managed to snag some booster packs of WizKid’s Pirates at Ocean’s Edge, her passion and something she’s had trouble finding lately.

Other shelves were laden with action figures (which mean nothing to me) and Warhammer materials.

Best of all, though, my two-year-old had a grand time. The back room, normally used for gaming, had a stash of pieces of various board games, including some oriented toward kids. She played with an odd collection of a bus, a dragon, and some other bits and pieces while we grownups looked around.

My daughter has already developed something of a dice fetish, so she and I spent some time looking at the broad display of colorful polyhedrons. After we left, I kept wishing I’d gone ahead and bought some of the unusual barrel dice they had for sale. As luck would have it, we justified a return trip a couple of days later, and I did snag a set. Since I mostly play GURPS, I don’t have a great justification for the purchase, but they’re fun, interesting, and different.

And they’re tempting me to go out and buy Serenity Role Playing Game (Serenity), partly because I love the setting, partly because I’d like to try the game, and partly because it will give me an excuse to bring out these funky fellows.

Entry Filed under: Review, Board Games, Collectible Card Games, RPG