The Tine Soldier

The Tin Soldier brands itself as ‘Australian’s greatest games store’. I’m not sure that’s true but they are pretty good. I’m not sure if it started as a wargaming shop, but that’s certainly the emphasis. And unlike most wargaming shops it’s not all about the Warhammer and 40k minis. There’s a big range of historical minis here, including stacks of really impressive painted ones for sale. There’s a decent but not overwhelming selection of RPGs and a few board games and the like. It’s a nice open shop as well, and the staff are friendly and helpful.What is pretty impressive is the collection of military history books they have in the second room. It’s huge and seemed very comprehensive with lots of things ranging from popular stuff to the Osprey range to serious scholarly works.

I didn’t buy anything (pay day is next week) and it seemed slightly on the expensive side to me but I havent done an exact price comparison to be sure. Upon reflection I’m sure it’s not Australia’s best games shop, although it might be Australia’s best wargames shop and it’s almost definitely Australia’s best historical wargames shop. It is however the sort of gaming shop you’d want to live near – solid and dependable.

Ace Comics & Games

This is the main gaming shop in Brisbane from what my thread on RPG.net told me. It’s up some stairs and not hugely well sign posted (the signs run out after the first floor). It’s probably 2/3rds comics with lots of trade paperbacks of all sorts.  There’s a little bit of minis gaming, some anime DVDs, a few cards and a couple of shelves worth of RPGs and all the major systems are covered. Basically it covers most of the things that people would want without having much in the way of really interesting or odd stuff. An interesting looking second hand shelf turned out to e almost entirely made up of reject d20 glut products although there was some old Dragon mags and even a copy of Pyramid from when it was print. I didn’t see any RPG stuff that I couldn’t get elsewhere pretty easily but did pick up a copy of DMZ vol. 5 which seemed really cheap. The staff were nice and obviously gamers – the whole time I was there, the guy behind the counter was talking about his D&D campaign. Overall, if I lived in Brisbane it would be were I went, but it’s nothing exceptional games wise if you have a decent shop at home.

Pulp Fiction

This is a sci-fi/fantasy/crime bookshop and it’s a goodie. I found it by accident on my one previous trip to Brisbane and got some helpful and friendly advice which lead me to read the wonderful Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. So I was excited to get back there and it was as good as I rememebred. Basically it’s a small shop in an arcade stuffed to the gunnels with good genre books. I finally found a copy of Felix Gilman’s Thunderer which has been on my to-read list for a few months and saw lots of other stuff I’d like to buy. one of the things I like about Pulp Fiction is that it’s well-ordered, light, open and inviting. It looks like a professionally run place and there’s no stereotypical geekiness about it. I like that and I suspect Pulp Fiction will be a regular stop for me when I make it up here.

Once you’ve paid for the book and shipping they send it out, with everything I’ve ordered turning up with in a week! Considering that Amazon and other large internet retailers usually take over a month this is pretty wicked. They have great customer service (I emailed to mention that I had a book missing from my order and a week later it arrived, with another book in there for free as a sorry!) and are quick to respond.

My one gripe with this great endevour is the price of their shipping to this part of the world. I understand that postage is expensive and living where I do I expect to pay quite a bit. However considering that the price of most books is around US$20-30, paying another quarter of that amount again in shipping just makes things tough. This is with the cheapest option. You quickly get to the point of paying twice again if you use the more expensive options.

However all things considered this is a pretty small gribe as with out this website I would never have been able to get hold of a number of the games I have recently read and utterly loved. Viva la Revolution!