Guardian Games

Guardian Games is my Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS). I’m lucky to live in a growing city that offers me a few choices like Red Castle in SE Portland in Foster-Powell and Portland Game Store in N Portland on Killingsworth, which interestingly enough are both located in neighborhoods I lived in the past… and if I still lived there they would be where you found me all the time.

Alas, Guardian is HUGE comparably. They also have some historical products on the shelves though they have a bit of almost anything I could ever want gaming-wise: Historical miniatures, Osprey books, paint and craft supplies, fantasy and sci-fi miniatures, any boardgame I could ever dream of, Dungeons and Dragons and pretty much any other RPG, even some video games for my PS4. The one thing they offer that I partake of mostly is a gaming space. Red Castle and Portland Game Store do too but Guardian has, like product, a huge range.

The reason why this is important to me is that I live, with my small family, in a small apartment. We do not have the space for me to run an RPG or wargame. One goal I have in life is to have a home that has a garage/basement/extra room/backyard I can put a nice shed in with a big table and shelves for gaming.

Guardian’s space offers me:

·         A walk-in table for any kind of pick-up game, let’s say on a Wednesday night I want to play Tanks with Jeff… we’d just go meet at Guardian.

·         Reservations for any small event, either in the general area or in The Critical Sip where beer can be bought. This is typically how we do Portland Historical Wargaming monthly games. It’s free.

·         I can also reserve a game room, from 4 people to 40 people. These do cost money. Ambuscade and my Saga tournaments are usually up in the Level-Up room that has a capacity of 60 people (though that would be tight).

Like I mention above, you can buy a beer in The Critical Sip. You can also buy snacks of all kinds, wine, cider, mead, Slime Jims, and a Coke. On top of that many places will deliver food there and on weekends a burrito truck will park in the parking lot. If that does not suit you there are many restaurants within walking distance, Bunk Sandwiches being one of my favorites.

A little bit about them selling beer:

Here in Oregon our alcohol sales (and now cannabis) is regulated by a state agency called the Oregon Liquor Control Commission aka OLCC. Not to get too much into how I feel about them the OLCC is very strict and complicated. To sell beer you must open yourselves to regulation by the OLCC. Typically this is done by bars and restaurants and convenience stores. Other places could sell beer too but it is just too much of a hassle for a place to sell beer if selling that beer is not your focus … like a game store.

I worked as a bouncer at many places over the years, almost all of those place selling alcohol thus under the scrutiny of the OLCC. Further, in the late 00s security at establishments licensed to sell alcohol had to also get an OLCC card like a bartender would. I’m not sure if that was legally mandated or just suggested. One of the things I was constantly on the lookout for was OLCC agents setting up stings and sending in people with fake IDs or getting served without showing an ID, there being no “you look old enough” law. The law, as I knew it since the early 00s was that a person old enough to drink in an establishment must have satisfactory proof of age to do so… ID. You can look like fucking Santa Claus and if an OLCC agent sees you in a bar and you do not have ID the bar gets fined. Last I checked it was $750.

So that’s why old guys get carded all the time in The Critical Sip, where they sell beer and cider. It’s also why you can’t bring in your own water bottles or other drinks. It’s not just for them to be able to maximize profit but also it’s the law that, if broken, could cost them $1000.  Being as how beer sales is more a friendly service than a focus of business one should kindly abide by such rules. It’s not them, it’s the OLCC.

The Level Up room and other rooms upstairs, since you have to go through the Critical Sip to get to them, is also under the umbrella of OLCC service rules. That is why, when you come to one of my Saga Tournaments, I will offer everyone a bottle of water that I bought from Guardian.

For those that do not know the lay out of Guardian here is a link to Spencer's Ambuscade blog where he just put up some directions and diagrams. I'll copy and past those diagrams here too:

I also have some very poor pictures of the actual room but I'm going to take some better ones next week, I had reserved a large table in Critical Sip for some pre-Enfilade Saga games and I plan to run up stairs to get a few panoramic shots of Level Up Room for Ambuscade blog.

And to advertise it on my own blog - Shield and Spear - Portland Saga Tournament, will be held in The Level Up October 14th, 2017. Start painting that Dark Age Irish army now! More details to follow of course. Stay tuned on this blog for that.