Editor’s Choice: Battleground Games & Hobbies Review 100%

CWF Editor's Choice Award for Singles Battleground Games & Hobbies is the brick and mortar store owned by Dungeons & Dragons aficionado Derek Lloyd located at 1501 Bedford St in Abington, Massachusetts (right over the Weymouth line on Route 18).

At this point I normally explain why I am reviewing the entity in question. To sufficiently do that would require a blog article of its own, which I may someday write. Like every great story it begins with a boy (or girl)…this one is named Steve D. Steve, who is now one of my best friends and was an usher at my wedding, and I gamed a lot together. He introduced me to “this new store that opened near me. They’re really cool there.” I walked into Battleground for the first time to play 40k with Steve. Seven years later I still go there at least once a week (soon I will be frequenting their Plainville store instead of the Abington location). As a result this review will be different than the usual, which are based on a small sampling of transactions or products.

This review is based on my almost decade long relationship with Battleground and innumerable transactions totaling more than $5,000 worth of business. I was not compensated for this review. In fact, I’m never compensated for my reviews and if the day ever comes that I am or am given special review only product I will gladly say so at the start of the review.

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Battleground Games Plainville Update

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We have new pictures chronicling Battleground Games Plainville’s renovations. These showcase the installment of merchandising hardware along with the anti-Apple Store color scheme. We communicated with Derek Lloyd, owner of Battleground Games, about the new store. Here’s what he had to say:

The new location is actually 1,733 sq ft. The Abington store was sold to me at 1,800 sq ft, but it definitely is NOT that size. The blocky structure in the middle of the store and the strange floor pattern that it creates makes it even less usable space-wise. The new location is at least as much square footage (probably more) and it’s a beautiful, wide-open, rectangular room that allows us to really make some amazing play-space.

The Plainville location is 25 Taunton Street in Plainville (click to see the location courtesy of Mapquest). If you’re in the area and want to lend a hand, then they’d love to put you to work.

Massachusetts Tax Free Weekend

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Today marks the start of Tax Free Weekend for Massachusetts. Many consumers use this to purchase big appliances and electronics such as refrigerators and flat screen TVs. Us gamers can also make the most of it by purchasing items we normally couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Some board games, Tides of Iron or Agricola come to mind, are particularly expensive. Why not save yourself 6.25% and pick one up from your FLGS? Or, perhaps you want to jump into one of those expensive tabletop games like Warhammer Fantasy and 40k? Been thinking of buying a case of collectible miniatures? A load of CCGs? Now’s your chance.

All retail locations in Massachusetts are waiving sale tax and some are being more inventive. The Whiz in Westborough is giving a 6.25% discount to all non-sale merchandise (including prepaid pre-orders) in addition to the tax free status. That amounts to a whopping 12.5% savings, which makes for a good reason to head onto Route 9 (they’re located on Rte 9 East between the BJs and Bernie & Phyl’s).

Are there any stores near you doing interesting things for tax free weekend?

P2 Theme Implemented

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The CWF Game Cast has implemented the P2 theme, developed by Automattic who also makes WordPress, in a new venture. We will be unveiling a new project that will let us more easily show what we are working on.

This will allow you to more easily communicate with us about our projects. It will also allow us to more easily announce future projects and any technical issues with the blog. Our new project is called Hermes and it will soon be publicly revealed.