I’ve been in and out of pretty much every game store that’s ever opened shop around Atlanta and having grown up in the 1980s, I really got to see the transition of the hobby from a brick-and-mortar based retail industry to one that exists almost entirely on the Internet and as part of that evolution I have seen many, many stores in the Atlanta area where I have lived all of my life come and go. Just recently, Atlanta’s last old warhorse, the final holdout from those brick-and-mortar days closed its doors after a couple of decades of business.

I never really liked The War Room; in fact, it was a dismal experience shopping there after the collapse of Atlanta Game Factory that inspired me to take another stab at hobby retail, but its passing was just another depressing hash mark on the hull of the unstoppable battleship that is deep-discounting internet retailers. With The War Room closing, the greater Atlanta area literally has nowhere where you can guy to buy a decent board game barring a comic book shop or two that may carry a perfunctory, overpriced selection centered around a couple of Steve Jackson games and maybe a copy of SETTLERS.

I knew a lot of people who cherished the War Room, particularly when they were at their largest location and had an open gaming area almost the size of a high school gym. But of all the dead and departed Atlanta game shops, Sword of the Phoenix was my store. Last week I was driving down the stretch of Peachtree Road, between Brookhaven and the Lenox Square area, where the final location of the store now stands occupied by one of those ink cartridge refill joints. I don’t get out that way much any more and seeing the place where I bought many, many games—a lot of which I still play and love—really kind of made me sad. It’s that feeling of something being lost and irreplaceable. I knew that I couldn’t stop in and see what new games were in stock or just browse the huge section of role-playing games that they were known for. I guess I could have gotten a new cartridge for my printer if I really wanted to. I did wonder if the place had the same air freshener and paper smell that it used to.

But Sword of the Phoenix had a longer history before it was exiled into a strip shopping center on an outbound road headed toward Chamblee, on the outskirts of Atlanta. Originally, there were two locations but the one I always went to was in Lenox Square Mall. It’s hard to imagine now, but there’s a reasonably sized storefront in one of Atlanta’s most exclusive malls, right next to Bloomingdales and a California Pizza Kitchen, where Sword of the Phoenix not only stocked piles and piles of wargames, board games, role-playing games, cards, miniatures, but also every other kind of hobby gaming paraphernalia imaginable. And they apparently did well enough in the 1980s to afford the rent there. These days it’s a newsstand that sells postcards and bottled sodas instead of toy soldiers and polyhedral dice.

The first time I went into Sword of the Phoenix was in 1985. My parents had taken me to Lenox Square, well out of our usual Marietta environs, for Christmas shopping. When I saw the store with its Old English font signage and stuffed to the gills with gaming products, I wanted to go in and see what it all was. I was already well into hobby games at that point…at least as much as I could be buying role-playing books and the occasional board game at a local comic shop. But this was the first time I had ever seen a game store and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I didn’t even know what a huge percentage of the stuff in there was. I had never seen miniatures games before and I had no idea that there were so many role-playing games that weren’t published by TSR. I pulled out wargames that I’ve since sought after and played but then thought “wow, these look way too complicated.” I was dazed, standing in the doorway of thousands of new worlds.

Strangely, I don’t remember what all I got from other stores in the mall that day; you know, the “early Christmas presents” routine, but I definitely recall getting the then-new ORIENTAL ADVENTURES book for DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS from that first visit to Sword of the Phoenix because I can still see the awesome drawings I laid eyes on for the first time while sitting in the food court and eating a Chick-Fil-A. But that store had an effect on me. Suddenly, going to the comic shop to get games wasn’t enough and from that point on “mom and dad, can we stop by the comic shop” turned into “mom and dad, can we go to Sword of the Phoenix?” But trips there were infrequent since it was so far away and my parents just didn’t get why I wanted to go there to get something I could get on special order at a B. Dalton bookstore.

In those days, up until the early 1990s, I was mostly into role-playing games and Sword of the Phoenix was like the Library of Alexandria of that scene. I’m convinced they had everything ever published. They had tiny press RPGs that are probably only remembered by a handful of gamers these days. They had every supplement, every rulebook, and every manual you could possibly imagine. When I started to get really hardcore into the Palladium role-playing system (being really into both Robotech and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before they sold out and went kid friendly), I’d go there almost every week to get a new book. The first copy of the amazing CALL OF CTHULHU role-playing game I ever owned, that really nice hardcover one with the color plates, I bought there. So much allowance money went into that store during that time it’s ridiculous. Once I had friends who could drive we were there at least once a week.

When I got into WARHAMMER 40K in the early 90s, Sword of the Phoenix was my hookup. I remember proudly plunking down big bucks for that hardcover edition of the ROGUE TRADER book they had on the shelf and then proceeding to be completely baffled as to how to play it. But the art was awesome at least, and the store got a lot of my money over the course of a couple of years as I tried to put together and crudely paint a reasonable Space Marine army.

When MAGIC: THE GATHERING hit, the first place I called looking for cards was SWORD OF THE PHOENIX. They never seemed to have any in stock but I got them to hold a box of alpha boosters for me once that I never did go pick up because I didn’t really have the money to buy it and my friends wouldn’t split it with me. I still wonder if there was a Black Lotus in that box. I remember calling up there when the LEGENDS set came out and asking the guy on the phone if they had any and he laughed at me.

Of course, I bought plenty of board games over the years at Sword of the Phoenix, too. I kept looking at this game called TITAN over and over again until I finally broke down and bought it one day and then proceeded to play it constantly with a friend of mine for at least six months. My first copy of TALISMAN (second edition, of course) came from there as did pretty much all of the Avalon Hill games that I bought in the 80s and 90s. When I got interested in GMT Games and other more conflict simulation-oriented games, Sword of the Phoenix was the only place in town that had a really comprehensive selection of wargames. Thinking back on it now, I really miss just browsing through their wargame section; there was always something I had never heard of or something that I really wanted to try someday.