The Sultan of Xmas

“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”
     - Sean          

Some of our readers are just so bang on, it’s uncanny - don’t we deserve better? I say Hell Yeah, Sean! We do!

I find that sometimes we adults are overlooked when it comes to what we love; sure there’s plenty of gaming product out there, but there’s so many products that just don’t exist that I am certain a truckload of cash could be made from.

This is a story about one such item that does exist: The Sultan Gaming Table

   OK, I am getting ahead of myself here… let me try to get this post back on track.

Today is Xmas, and although today is a special day for all of us that celebrate it, it is even more special for Sean - today is his birthday!

And what did Sean get? Hmmm… he only got one of the best damned gifts any true gamer could ask for, that’s what! Sean is now the proud and oh-so lucky owner of The Sultan, a gaming table that has descended from the gods over at Geek Chic.

Most of our readers probably missed his comment last week in the original post, so I am including it (after the jump) for you all to read. His post got me all excited, and he even was so gracious to provide us with some excellent pics!

So follow the jump and listen to Sean’s story of getting The Sultan… and if you don’t already have a mug of eggnog or warm apple cider, get one. I think you’ll enjoy the story.

After reading the original post, Sean let us know that he’d seen The Sultan at GenCon this past summer. He loved it so much he decided to make the investment and get one for himself. Investment? Oh yeah… The Sultan is not just a fancy card table folks, the prices begin at $9,650. Here’s a quote from Geek Chic’s site on The Sultan that gives you an idea of what we’re looking at:

“The Sultan Gaming Table is an heirloom quality piece of furniture that should provide luxurious service for generations.

We use Black Walnut And Hard Rock Sugar Maple with Traditional Joinery techniques to create an attractive and durable piece of furniture. Drawers reveal maple secondary wood from the through dovetails.”

… yeah, they say it better than I ever could.

And now Sean owns one. Here’s the story about the excitement of The Sultan arriving at your home, in Sean’s words:

Sean 12.17.08 at 11:04 pm

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://web.me.com/thenorthman/Seans_World/Seans_Albums/Pages/
Abridge_Sultan-Highlander.html

Sean

Merry Christmas folks… and Sean, Happy Birthday!

:Karnatos