Contra-Band Table Top Games

Contra-Band Table Top Games is a tabletop game store at 69 W Main Street in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, built around open play tables, demo games and a weekly calendar of organized play. It carries Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering, runs a Pokémon League for all ages, and also hosts Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder and other tabletop games. It suits families, new players who want someone to walk them through a game, and groups looking for table space.

Weekly play

The standing schedule centers on Pokémon on Wednesday and Magic on Friday, with roleplaying nights filling out the rest of the week.

Saturdays have events scheduled nearly every week.

Pokémon

Pokémon League is the store's anchor program, and the Wednesday session is built to be loose: players trade, play games, color and hang out. The store supports the trading card game and Pokémon Go, with lures set out during league. League Challenges and Cups are on hold until 2027 because the league's organizer is out of action for now, with a return to running them expected in January.

Special events fill the gap. The Delta Reign prerelease runs October 24 with a $25 entry fee: learn to play starts at noon, registration opens at 1 PM, and the tournament begins at 2 PM or once 16 players have signed up. Pokeween on October 31 is free, with promos for the first 50 Pokémon visitors, sticker sheets and an open league play session, and it is the first chance to earn points for November.

Magic: The Gathering

Friday is Commander night, starting at 6 PM. Players bring their own commander decks, and pods are capped at four so that anyone arriving a little late can still get into a game. A Magic Star Trek prerelease is set for November 7, with registration at noon and the tournament starting at 1 PM or when 16 players have registered.

Tables, demos and roleplaying

When nothing else is scheduled, the open tables are free to use, and staff will guide visitors through any of the store's demo games. Open games cost nothing. Reserving a table for a private game costs $20 for 4 hours. Dungeons & Dragons runs on the 2024 rules, and the weekly roleplaying slots above rotate between D&D and Pathfinder depending on who is running a game that week.

Hours and getting there

The store is open Wednesday through Sunday and closed Monday and Tuesday.

The address is 69 W Main Street in Hillsborough, a short walk from two other shops on the same stretch.

The local scene

Within Hillsborough, Final Stage Video Games is 0.2 miles away and The Earth Magic Shoppe is 0.3 miles away. Farther afield, Comics Plus in Goffstown is 16.3 miles off and Magic Flute Child in Amherst is 21.2 miles. For card shows, Lot of Cards' Thursday Night Show is 33 miles away, with its next date on November 19. The Salem Derry Monthly Card Show, 39.1 miles out, starts next on November 8, and the Dover Sports Card Show, 50.8 miles away, on November 15.