Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne kicks off ICv2 Accessories Week by discussing some notable games accessories fit for shelf.
It is Accessories Week here at ICv2. Our store is always looking for more accessories that we can fit into available shelf or floor space (not counter space, which is something a lot of manufacturers promote). Unless you have a great looking display or a really high turnover item with a decent profit margin, our store will reserve its counter space for the items we already have on it.
If you have an accessories display that fits nicely on a shelf or that will fit into an unused spot of floor space, we can talk, unless of course you are Games Workshop, in which case you just send the racks and tell us after the fact (see “Games Workshop Knows Best“):
Paints. There are a number of paint lines available for stores to stock: the aforementioned Games Workshop/Warhammer line, plus paints from The Army Painter, Turbo Dork, Two Thin Coats, Vallejo, P3, Reaper, WizKids and several that I’m forgetting. Our primary lines are Warhammer and The Army Painter, primarily because we see very strong brand loyalty from our Games Workshop customers for the Warhammer line of paints and have had a few asking when we will get the Tone Pro line in (we keep saying “soon, soon”). We’ve seen similar, though less strong, loyalty towards The Army Painter lines as well. We would stock more of the Vallejo line of Game Color paints, but every time we remember to check distributor in-stocks for an order, our distributors have very few colors in stock.
The P3 paints are another line we stocked in the past but discontinued since the primary customer for them were Warmachine players and our player base collapsed when Privateer ceased operations and, despite the re-launch of the line, has not rebuilt itself to the point that we need a line of paints dedicated to its player base. We have not had enough consistent customer requests for the store to invest in another line of paints.
Tools. Games Workshop and The Army Painter have wide lines of miniature tools and basing accessories and free racks designed to hold them, though it becomes a problem whenever either company decides to change its rack modular (a term I learned at Walmart, I have also heard it referred to as a plan-o-gram or schematic). We have to restock tools and brushes from both companies on a weekly basis. Out of stocks occur moderately often with The Army Painter, but very seldom with Games Workshop.
Dice. We have stocked bulk Chessex dice for decades, and see no reason to change that. Customers are not particularly brand loyal to dice, they just want a full bin from which to select and Chessex offers that, though we have found ourselves having to buy directly from the company more than we did in past years, as distributors find dealing in single dice not worth the hassle. With the rise of the blind bag dice set, we stock sets from Foam Brain, Black Oak Workshop, Sirius and of course Chessex. There are other companies making blind bag sets but I have not seen any particular brand loyalty to any of the dice companies, save for Sirius and that is primarily due to the Dungeons & Dragons license it acquired. I am not sure how much demand customers would have for a Sirius branded blind bag set.
For more news and features on gaming accessories, see “ICv2 Accessories Week 2026.”
Comments? Have I overlooked a great accessory? Send them to castleperilousgames@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Source: ICV2
