Since the 1980s, a small shop off Goodwood Boulevard has been holding down the fort.
The walls are lined with miniature figurines of warriors and dragons, bottles of paint in every color, vibrant boxes of board games—but most of the shop’s real estate is dominated by long, wide tables where battles are waged.
This is Little Wars, a one-stop shop for all of the above, as well as a hub for a surprisingly active and widespread gaming community in Baton Rouge.
“Baton Rouge has a disproportionate-to-its-population number of world-class gamers in all genres. … We have a couple of players who could compete on a national level,” owner Andrew Inzenga says.
Inzenga has owned and operated Little Wars since buying it from the original owners, Elliott’s Books, more than seven years ago, and has been entrenched in the city’s gaming community for years longer than that. According to Inzenga, two factors create the perfect climate for a gaming community in the Capital City: its status as a college town and the unbearable heat that makes many turn to indoor entertainment.
Almost every night, at least one group of gamers will wind up at a table in Little Wars—often just folks who stop in knowing that a game might be happening. On weekends, meetups and tournaments for role-playing games like Pathfinder and war games like Warmachine and Hordes take over the shop. People of all races, ages and genders gather to roll dice, plot strategy and yell good-natured trash talk at each other across the board.
It’s a tight-knit community that continues to grow, with gamers drawing friends into the subculture. Unlike online video games where unmoderated conversation makes some gamers feel unwelcome, Little Wars attracts a diverse crowd with Inzenga’s enforced “don’t be a jerk” policy.
Novice gamers are welcome too, with Little Wars’ wide range of stock and special orders offering something for everyone. Inzenga is a crusader for well-crafted board games, and he’s always eager to share with new gamers.
“One of my goals is to make sure nobody plays Monopoly ever again,” Inzenga says. “That game is horrible. The mechanics are awful, it’s boring, it’s entirely luck-based. I could get drunk, put on a blindfold, spin around in a circle, throw a dart and 100 percent of the time I will hit something [in this store] that’s more fun to play.”
So if you’re curious about tabletop gaming, walk into Little Wars and Inzenga will have some questions for you. How many people are playing? How long are their attention spans? How creative are they? How drunk will they be?
You’ll be leaving with something perfectly suited to you, and you might find yourself back again on a Saturday afternoon, taking a seat at a table ready for a game.
littlewars.com
