Specialist Arms Forum
Specialist Games General Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: cjbennett22 on June 12, 2016, 12:32:43 AM
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I am building a gaming table
wanted to get in a last minute question for ideas for features.
my features include...
on wheels
bar table height
shelving for board games/puzzles
storage for miniatures
storage for game mats
basically an all in one table and pedestal.
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Locks for the wheels, otherwise knocking the gaming table may displace or knock over minis....
One source ideas could be googling "Sultan gaming table"! :o
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though I really like those tables because they really pack a lot into a basic table. I kind of don't like the fold out things just because you really move around a lot with table top war gaming and im afraid of running into something and I never really sit down a whole lot during gaming. Most games are turn based but even during your opponent's turn you need to pay attention and roll some dice.
They tables are worth every penny but the price and the features are just too much for me :)
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I hope you keep us updated on your progress (with lots of pictures). That sounds very awesome, and something I would like to make someday myself.
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I will try, I have the base done and ready for a horizontal filing cabinet (all metal) and then a cubby hole type pressboard piece of furniture at the end. total size 4'x3' with the casters underneath
I have plans for a cubby hole going all the way through for 4' long rolled up gaming mats.
I really want this to not just be a gaming table but an everything table. My family would be mad at me if I took up this much room for myself :)
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here is the beginning
3'x4' base on casters (with brakes)
the steel horizontal filing cabinet and the simple cubby hole piece of furniture. 1 cubby will pass through 4' for gaming mats to be rolled up and stored in.
can you tell I have kids? :)
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Awesome! I already love it.
Is that at bar height as it is, it's hard to tell in the picture, or will you be adding a lot more to the height? There's all sorts of storage space in there! What will the dimensions of the top platform be?
Also, just out of curiosity, what other games does your family plan to use the table for?
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my kids are still too young to play anything, the oldest is nearly 4. he LOVES trying to play warmaster but always gets entranced by my dice tower and the red dice.
Right now, I only play warmaster, man o'war, heroquest and combine them a little bit with mighty empires with my brother. The kids have a minion version of trouble and a finding dory memory card type game. I still have all of my old board games which even includes an old dungeons and dragons quest and I am currently looking to get a spacehulk game before I dive into 40k epic and/or BFG.
There will be a paper roll dispenser for the kids to do a lot of art work on it and for the first few years of school ill be helping them with their homework on here and the wife hopes to use it to sew one day as well.
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Have you ever heard of battle lore? It's supposed to be a great introduction to war gaming for young kids and new comers. I think it's about 70 bucks at miniature market.
I'll probably have to work out a similar deal with my (soon to be) wife if I ever make something like this. Multiple uses and what not.
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I had not, I think heroquest will actually get him into it enough as he seems to do pretty well with that. My brother has been using heroclix for his nearly 5 year old. They have the new ninja turtles that the kid is completely infactuated with.....everything ninja turtles. I don't expect them to do anything game wise for a while. They still to many disctractions because everything, EVERYTHING is new and awesome to them LOL
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Almost forgot to add this update today.
storage is all there and painted, the cubby is more than 4 feet long on the left. Its not a craftsman's masterpiece by any means and its a basically good slapstick job but I think it has everything there.
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Looking really good. I think the table is the best motor to make the hobby evolve.
Anyway, can I ask you how old is your boy?
Mine is three years old, and all I could do is "narrative stories" and hand "fake-battles" but he is not ready for abstract things like dice rolls... We start with paper-rock-scissor (maybe the first wargame and I will dare to say the base of all wargames, let call it infantry-cavalry-bow), but I discover that he is not handling very well when he loose and try to cheat... I hope wargames will learn that there are some rules, not to cheat, playing is fun and winning something accesorie, and patiente, patiente, patiente.
So my question is how old do you thing a boy could start in a game with abstract miniatures and rules and dices to decide the fate of the miniatures?
I do not want to introduce him very quickly as the freedom of his mind now is the source of all imagination, and I do not wish to parcel it so early.
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I have started to play (with) carcassonne with my 5 year old daughter. We dont use the rules for placing farmers because she finds it too abstract and dont really think that many steps ahead just yet.
She does on the other hand understand the basic rules on how a tile can be placed and how points are calculated. She can get a little competative with it but will just as well place a tile on a city I or my wife controls because she "wants to be nice" or "it looks good". All in all she enjoys it a lot and likes to see the finished result. Its more playing than gaming and winning/competing isnt really the focus - we usually just end up trying to build a nice map together but still keep track of points.
Another game we play is Ponder which is a simple turnbased boardgame where you try to move your figures from one end of the board to the opposite while trying to stop everyone else from doing the same. She can formulate battleplans for moving her own stuff but mostly misses out on wrecking other players progress. I try to push her thinking on this part by being very open with my plans and "warning" her of what I will do next turn so she gets a chance to wreck that action. Good fun ^_^
I think next step closing in on miniatures will be something very simple with just 1 character to worry about and perhaps just navigating a board with obstacles. Will see :)
/Mlkr
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This will forever be part of my internal strife with my kids. I want to teach them everything I know but I don't want them to just do what I do. I want them to have their own interests and, for example, have the hobbies that they want, not what I get them into.
I want to say that heroquest went really good compared to how I thought it would. Right now I am just concerned with him rolling the right dice and the right amount of them and being able to count and see what he rolled and to NOT play with the mini's because usually the barbarian model is swinging his sword at everything all over the place with him since, I think 7 months ago, when he first saw and played with it. But the last time we played he was just kind of watching and hanging out as I basically played for him and every once in a while he would roll the dice and make a comment about dead orcs. :)
Also, Patience on a fathers part is needed. Your son/daughter will want to follow the parent's foot steps and hopefully the parent will be willing to "carry" him/her along. Your kids will tell/show you when they are ready to play. Just like with potty training......I think. trying not to give parenting advice, as there should be no such thing. I use my own experiences, I barely remember when me and my older brother started painting our "Dragon Strike" figures so I must have been 6 or 7 at the latest.
Oh, my son was very desperate to play, "the black and stars game", Risk. I knew better but took the time with him to set it up but he just immediately starting playing and moving the pieces all over instead of playing the game.
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Almost forgot to add this update today.
storage is all there and painted, the cubby is more than 4 feet long on the left. Its not a craftsman's masterpiece by any means and its a basically good slapstick job but I think it has everything there.
Should of course comment on this since I am following the build getting along.
I like how you have taken a few bits and bobs and cobbled it together into a very functional furniture to store pieces in and play on. Smart storage for the gaming mats. Thumbs up ^_^
Looking forward to seing it in use :)
And CJB22 - Agree, if your kids find the stuff you do interesting it's a joy to let them join in and try it out. It's my hope that I will get my girl somewhat interested in the gaming hobby but I dont think it will be her main thing growing up. But we are quite a few parents in our local gaminggroup and all kids love the litle miniatures and the dice and everything. Both me and another guy have had our kids roll the dice for us in games of Warmaster before they head of on other stuff with the better part ;)
Anyways - playing games with my kid is a nice way for me to get som hobbytime in and at the same time get to spend some extra time with her.
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When my kids where younger the Lego games were good intro games - some of them are actually very interesting games, there is one with knights climbing a mountain to reach a dragon that is quite tactical. They also have an interesting 'build a dice' mechanic which I have thought about trying to port to a table top game.
One thing I found with kids is that they have an innate sense of fairness - they wanted to try Warmaster, but when they go lots of command success in a row (kids with dice!) they thought that this was unfair and I should have a go.
Now they are a bit older they like Song of Blades and Heroes - especially as they can use any figures with it - and they have independently worked out tactics on this - one of them is particularly deadly with her mob of halflings!
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a mob of halflings... sounds good!
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With all this talk of family gaming, a concern that always pops up in my mind, is that of violence and also the human figure, mainly the female body portrayals. One of the reasons why I really like Heroquest, looking through everything I fail to notice really ANY blood or gore or even scantily clad women. How much of a concern of those images is it for everyone else? I have no fear for my 2 sons in seeing some blood or gore as long as it is depicted by an artists hand in the old comic fashion. Heck, yesterday my son was playing with the body of a mouse that drowned in our pool that I had just taken out with the skimming net and pole so I know gross things are all around and I am not one of those nancy dads.
I kid you not my son wanted to "tickle him to make him feel better" LOL
Actually when I think about it, Games workshop does do a pretty good job at keeping those shots out of their games but they always seem to leak in from around the edges. One thing that is constant in all table top war games, people or things get killed.
This weekend will be the table top and from then on the other things that will make it more of a table, I might add a fold away laptop bracket. I built it up with 2x4's like the walls of a house so I could put in an outlet later with an extension cord to plug the table into the wall. I have a piece of drywall right now for a table top and I really just don't see it, I am moving around so much playing games on it that I would hate to put anymore out for people to need to move around or to push them further away from the table top. Oh also, a large paper roll hanger so the kids can have plenty of surface area to color and finger paint on. I'll start buying some cheap revel models to let my oldest son paint, see how he takes it, I'm sure ill need to literally hold his hand through the whole thing but it should be fun for him. He always asks to go to "paint store" and play with the trains, Ryders hobby shop, my local GW retailer where I buy my paints and supplies.
Oh and happy fathers day to everyone, kids are exhausting but man they are also so much fun!
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got the table top done.
2 pics below.....building it and installed it.
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and I found a better picture of the long cubby I put in.
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The finished table looks good.
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Looking awesome. You have really brought it all together! I envy the space on a nice big table top like that.
So I confess I don't really know much about Hero quest, but I have heard a lot of people talking about it. I see that the first edition is from 1989. Still a good game though? Are there new editions?
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Nice result :)
/Mlkr
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Heroquest is ridiculously simple. I mostly got it as it was a game i missed out on when i was growing up and actually found an auction on ebay that the seller didnt have a clue and didnt take but 2 pictures or list anything about it so no one else bid on it and i got lucky, it was a 45 dollar great condition 99.9% complete game. It even came with a collection of old ral parthas for whatever reason. Second reason i got it was to remove my wife's putrid party games and make everyone play an actually fun game. Like i said, it is ridiculously simple. Thirdly, i made rules to integrate it into my campaign stuff along with man owar. If you can find it for cheap 3bough then i would suggest you buy it. My nearly 4 year old can almost play it.
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here it is with handles, the game I was playing was just out of boredom and the dwarves, even with a dwarf king with command of 10, failed a lot of orders and got routed!
The next step is to order a roll of the large format paper to size up the overall diameter and then to make a dispenser for it for the end that is currently up against the wall. This will be under the tables overhang so it will not add to the overall length of the table. I will probably need to drill holes for pegs that will hold up a new shelf in the bottom left hand cubby that currently has the little puzzles in it.
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If anyone is interested in discussing Heroquest in more detail, we have a board for this very purpose: http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?board=56.0.
Great work on the gaming table. You've put a lot of work into that, and the results are impressive.
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Wow, that is beautiful. Those black handles, the white paint. That is really amazing work. You should be very proud.
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I used nails instead of screws for the table top construction and even though the nails are punched below the surface of the wood they still show as little black dots. The handles then had to be black and do work very well. Thank you everyone.
Once the table is done I can get back into my projects to finish my armies and magnetized and boxed instead of just sitting loose in some trays like they are now. ;)
Cant wait for the kids to get old enough to actually use the table! HA