Toy Soldier Games — Local services in Amesbury

I feel compelled to share my honest experience at this local, downtown store over the past few months, in the hopes it might inspire more inclusivity and community-building.

I began hosting a small Learn-to-Play Dungeons and Dragons group for my son and a few friends at Toy Soldier Games. I was told the space was available for us to use at no charge, provided there were no conflicts of scheduling. Within the first few weeks not only myself, but the kids I was teaching and their parents each spent time and money supporting this business. I was excited to have a “cool” spot for the kids to meet up and play, and the kids loved the novelty of playing at the shop.

Although other adult patrons of the store were witnessed several times ordering and eating take out in the store- I was emailed and told my kids could not bring their own snacks or drinks, and also that they were being disruptive and disrespectful to others in the store. Although not outright asked to relocate, the passive aggressive tone from the owner made me very uncomfortable. Regardless, I continued to host my sessions at the store (and encourage revenue to be brought in), and have also returned numerous times to introduce my friends to this spot.

Yesterday, I was in the store and the young associate working directed me to the shop’s publicly available discord. I asked if I could share my services/knowledge and hopefully inspire new groups to form- and excitedly shared my information online hoping to connect. I could not find any rules AGAINST sharing my personal groups, or rules of any kind for that matter.

The owner of Toy Soldier has since removed my messages, and refuses to provide an explanation as to why I am being discouraged from this path. As a resident of Amesbury for 10+ years, and as a mother with two school-aged children in Amesbury’s public schools, my intent is to build ties within the community and use the tools and resources of gaming to bring people together.

I choose to take my business to other, local, open-minded and welcoming game shops, and am sorely disappointed and discouraged at this display from within our own town.

I will continue to post and share this...

Excellent customer service and selection of most popular board and table -top war games like "Flames of War" "Warhammer40K" and Card games like "Magic" Mick the owner/proprietor schedules special events on Magic New Edition Release days. Well run, like all the events at the "Soldier" Fair to all, no local favoritism here at all, but there is a solid base of friendly and knowledgeable players there that are always welcoming to new and experienced players old and young alike Well worth a visit even to just window shop ;)Also if you have someone you are thinking of buying a gift for that is interested in different games and you're not up on them, then Mick or the staff are there for you, so you will buy the correcty items and probably...

Wonderful game shop, and well worth our drive! The staff is very friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. They have a great selection of puzzles, kids' games, board games, card games (including trading), TTRPG reference, mini models, Warhammer, DnD, Pathfinder, frisbee, dice, and Citadel and Army Painter supplies! In back they have tables for community events and a small selection of books (Jim Butcher mostly)~

An immediate favorite that we've visited at least once a week since...