There was a GenCon video that I saw Tuesday that left me unsure as to what exactly I was looking at, it never really showed the entire item to the viewer. Today I noticed people on Twitter were chattering about the same item, and now I know what I am going to do if I ever make it rich folks…
Behold, The Sultan Gaming Table (don’t even continue reading at this point, just clicky-clicky and check this thing out - but come back when you are done drooling!)
I don’t even know what to say about this except for Oh Mai Gawd!
OK, let’s talk about what this table has going for it: it’s made of dovetail jointed wood, 4 player stations that are fold-out desks with drawers, dice/counter/pencil trays, two book library stations, an enormous 4 x 7.5 foot playing surface for maps/miniatures/etc., cup holders that slide under the table to hold the drink out of the way from being bumped over and spilled, and you can place any type of map on the playing surface… there’s certainly enough space.
This is a geek’s dream piece of furniture - I used to think that I’d like to own a house some day that would be able to fit a pool table, but now I am swapping out that dream for a room that fits The Sultan. But it really is only something I can dream of, at just under $10,000 USD I don’t think I could ever afford such a beautiful thing.
There’s certainly a lot of buzz building around this table too: Forbes is calling it the Belle of the Ball at GenCon, there’s a bunch of Sultan pictures over at Boardgame News (just scroll down to the bottom for the pics), and there’s a cool picture over at Purple Pawn with a world map on the table.
I can picture this table being used in so many game genres too; imagine plotting the flight path of your bi-planes to cross the enemy lines, lining up your Civil War infantry for a showdown between North and South, or the winding tunnels of a dungeon crawl that dares enter the bowels of the Dwarf Lich-King’s cavernous kingdom. I’m telling you, this table just gets the creative juices pumping through my brain just looking at pictures of it, I could not imagine getting to play at such a table, never mind trying to imagine life owning one!
Oh Mai Gawd!
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I loved it so much I managed to pick one up! It is going to be awesome!
Really if you game a bunch do you not deserve to game on a real table that you can actually put all your creativity to use. Yes a little expensive but it is real classy furniture that will hold its value in the long run. It is put together very well.
Personally they are working on doing a custom/prototype table they might start offering as another option. Instead of having a library/game master at each end there will be an end with two gamer stations slightly less to them than the side stations. But this way it gives a total of 6 players and one game master station. Now I just have to talk them into adding cup holders for this end station for each player.
Sean
Wow, that is awesome - congratulations! You’re going to have to take some pictures when you get it and send them to us so we can post them and see it in action.
Definitely keep us updated…I’m curious to hear what it’s like to really game on it. Let us know your impressions when you get it or send us a little review and we’ll post it. Haha…I bet your gaming group is pretty excited and can’t wait for it to arrive!
Me and Karn were just talking last night on skype about how great an idea this is. It’s just cool to see a company producing quality, fun stuff for gamers and realizing that the market for “grown-up” gamers is not fully tapped…more like virtually ignored. I’m just dying to see what else Geek Chic comes up.
Sure it’s expensive, but honestly a lot of well-crafted, truly quality furniture is expensive. Just like any other piece of heirloom furniture - it’s pricy but you can have it forever and even pass it on to the next generation!
If I ever move out of NYC and have a house as opposed to an apartment…I would definitely consider something like the Sultan.
Yea that is another note. I do have room in my house; kind of, but since we will be selling this place in a year or two we are going to keep it at our friends house rather than take it up our stairs and possibly get it damaged. :O)
I will post updates/photos of it when it gets here. Which it sound like at the minimum though it will be two months since I am getting a “custom/prototype” done. Apparently normal turn around is 6 weeks. Plus they are taking the feedback they got at Gencon and putting into use. For example the flush table top so it can be used as a table if needed, having more than one game surface might be in the works as well. Those type of things. It is awesome though.
I like the idea of the different maps I can get printed out that would fit under the clear plexiglass to represent different terrain. This is great for airplane games or even space games I suppose. I think I might look into having a map with contour lines on it for where the hills and what not are for my Micro Armour games. Not sure about that though part of the micro armour appeal is the 3D aspect. I guess I could put a matt down on it and still have the hills and what not for the micro armour. We will see. I will take lots of photos.
You could also print out a dungeon or what not if you had the proper software and put it under it and run it that way. Me I have a ton of the Dwarven Forge stuff and with a two inch clearance under the table top they will sit nicely under the table top until the dungeon is revealed. So that is my plan anyways.
Sean
OK, I am officially jealous! Sean my man, you’re going to have to hook us up with a Skype phone call to tell us all about it when you get it, especially once you have a game or two under your belt while sitting around The Sultan.
Did you see it in person at GenCon by chance? I’ve seen a lot of footage of this table now, but I am itching to know things like, how tall is it… because I am concerned with the size of it. A 4ft wide playing surface surrounded by a good deal of wood at its sides might mean one hell of a reach to move units near the center of the table… but then again, perhaps you could get one of those cool “reach-sticks” to pull/push units around if it was ever an issue (you see people in movies use these all the time… do they have an official name?).
Wow - I won’t be able to sleep now! Someone is getting a Sultan! I am excited, and it is not even me!
I did see it at Gencon. It is officially 5.5 feet wide. So really not much wider than two banquet tables put together. Which is what my group has gamed on up to when I get the Sultan. To reach the center from one side it is a 33 inch reach. Not that bad really considering it is only another 3 inches or so beyond what most people play on.
The height of the table is dependent on how high of the legs you want. The actual main part of the table is 11 inches deep. Then you add the legs onto it and in the advertisement they say you can decide how tall you want that to be (personally we have not got to that part yet.). I am going to make it where my legs just fit under it on a normal size chair. That way the top isn’t to high if your using it as a regular table.
I was actually thinking about the “pusher” sticks you see in the movies as well for when I get lazy. :o)
Sean
Hello all just had my Sultan Gaming table delivered by Geek Chic. They did a marathon drive up to Anchorage, Alaska from Mill Creek, Washington.
They had left early Thursday the 11th and arrived in Anchorage the 13th. They said it was quite an adventure. Once during driving they kind of went into a “valley” and were wondering why in the world did it suddenly get so cold in the van. Looked at the vehicle out door thermometer and it was showing -32 F (negative 32 degrees F.) Bloody cold!!! One they drove back up the hill it warmed up but still bloody cold!
I cannot thank them enough for bringing it up to me and doing it right before Christmas! (My birthday is the 25th of December so it was great.) They said they slept in the van so they would keep moving rather than get comfortable in a hotel. Once again I cannot thank them enough. I absolutely love the table. One of the two was diagnosed with having a hernia as well but still did the trip rather than delay it.
Plus I am glad the 7 and a half-foot table became an option for me half way through the time I made an order and before production started. Other wise I might not have been able to get it in the house. I new it would have been tight but didn’t know it would be that tight.
My stairs are open up to about 20 or 25 feet from the bottom to the ceiling but just above the door and 6 feet from the door their is a ceiling 7 feet high and I just didn’t take into account the “bridging” that would need to be done. What I mean by that is even though it is seven feet high when the table starts going up the stairs the useable space gets smaller depending how long it is. So by the third stair it might only have 6 1/2 feet of free space. I do not think with this table it didn’t get closer than six feet but the extra eighteen inches would of made getting the longer one useable space down to the minimum 5 1/2 feet. This also is not giving room for anything else since the table is 5 1/2 feet wide. I can always explain better with visual so if there is questions on what I mean I will post a picture later explaining it.
My table is officially called the “Abridged Highlander Sultan”. What does that mean? Abridged is the shorter table, which is seven and a half feet long, and the Highlander is where you have one end station as a double player station with an integral dice tower in between them. The two layer end station; Highlander, does not have the different drawers but this allows for a better viewing angle of book/paper material laid out when the top is swung out. This allows a two-player game when people are usually standing to have their mini’s sitting on this lower level and easily viewable. The side stations are more in line with a role-playing game where people are sitting down and then the books or other material is viewable from a lower level.
Also new from the prototype that was on show at Gencon is a “tube” storage behind the middle drawer below the dice rolling station on each side of the table. This is PERFECT! It spans the width of the table so your maps that you get printed out either from Geek Chic or later at a professional place has a safe area to be in. You can also put your sheets that come with the table of the “grids”. You have a choice of two the come standard I couldn’t decide so I got four different things for a little extra. I got 1-inch square grid, 1.25-inch hexagonal grid, star map, and a shot of farm fields for airplane battles. I am contemplating going to Kinko’s to get a large green swampy looking/murky water mat for under Dwarven Forge pieces. There are just so many different scenarios that a person can come up with to print out to put under the Plexiglas.
As an unadvertised bonus in my eyes is the space under the map area that allows storage of miniatures or any thing else a person can think of. Heck I bet if a thief were in your house he wouldn’t even think of looking under this area. It is unadvertised because it doesn’t look “pretty”. There is a total of eight “bays” that can hold two Army Transport foams lengthwise and can hold about 6 to 7 inches. You do not want to overload the spaces though because the map area is not heavy enough to keep it level.
The built in dice tower on the Higlander end station is a nice added feature they now do as an option. You can even have each of the side stations have a dice tower but it wasn’t a option for my table at the time but it is a nice one. Maybe if I get a second table in the future. :O)
What I am looking at is making or talking Geek Chic into making some type of nice looking shelf system / drawer system for under the table. There are supports that something could rest on. See picture.
Here is a link to a photo album of mine…
http://gallery.me.com/thenorthman#100082&view=mosaic&bgcolor=black&sel=39
Sean
Awesome story Sean - thanks for sharing it with us!
Actually… mind firing off an email to me? (karnatos@alwaysgoright.com)
Have a Happy Birthday, and Happy Holidays!
:K
Thinking of getting this table for my husband for his birthday. Now that you have lived with it for a couple of months, any additional comments? Would you have done anything differently? Have you found chairs that work well with the table? I would appreciate any updated feedback before I commit. Thanks.
Hello Gaming Wife,
There is one thing I “might” of done differently and that is keep the game master stations on each end. I am finding that doing DnD is best at 4 to 5 players (which I never had been a DM before so never knew) rather than six players. So do not really need to have a total of seven stations at the table. Plus when playing a two player game of Flames of War or what not it would of been cool to have stations at each end of the table for books and what not. Not a big deal since there is more than enough space for both players to stretch out. SPeaking of Flames of War…it would of been nice to have the full size table instead of the smaller Abridge table but only for FOW games. SInce a normal FOW game is suppose to be 8 feet so the 7 1/2 feet wouldn’t of been to different.
Another thing is scratches in the finish will show up. YOu can not get around that. At first I was like S$@#%& but they are minor and really only I probably notice them since I did pay the $12,000 (got the two player end station) for the table.
My 9 1/2 month old loves the table. :O) I think he knows some how that it is for him when he gets older (of course after I am done gaming though. ) He reaches up to it all the time and stands up and pushes the cup holders in and out. I got a “pusher” stick with it as well and he wields that thing like a professional.
http://web.me.com/thenorthman/Seans_World/Seans_Albums/Pages/Abridge_Sultan-Highlander.html
I do not have pictures on my site of him wielding the stick but I’ll put them up in the next couple of days. JUST got my internet working at the speed it was suppose to be so now things are good.
Sean
Hi! I am Sean’s wife. I just wanted to write in and say that yes, the Sultan is expensive, but it is truly beautiful. From a woman’s standpoint, it is an awesome table. We had company over for Christmas dinner and enjoyed dinner around the table. It is a little high for eating, but we just dropped the gaming stations down and ate from them. That would be a suggestion of mine from a dinner table standpoint is to lower the height. The table, as Sean said, keeps our little boy occupied which makes mommy a happy lady. =0) Karnatos, I have a Skype account. You should be able to find me by my email address. I can let Sean use it if you want to add me as a friend.
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