Wonderful review! I haven't personally purchased on of these tables yet but look forward to the day I'll be able to, appreciate your comments and in-depth details.
Thanks for your review! I have the same sentiment about wood - it is a material that shows it's love and that is good. Good call on the accessories - given the time between availability I'll need to budget to grab more accessories for my players
What an actually review? Not just "Here is the table and I am building it now, so this is my first impression before I use it" video! Color me shocked sir! Color me shocked!
Thx for the review! Just built mine. I got the near-blsck version. I really wanted your version as I prefer having visible grain. All of my attachments are plain maple so I still get the grain and it certainly makes for a nice contrast. In the end, it's a very well built table that I'm loving all the same. Now I just need to buy eight chairs for it. Lol
I just realized while watching your video that I have an example of the new Expresso color. I got my table in a different color and chose to get my cup holders in Expresso, partly for cost, partly for contrast. Yeah, my Expresso is pretty much pitch black. As I type right now, it's sitting on my black desk and they're nearly identical in color Very happy with your video and spot on with your comments. I got a topper block with mine. It's super handy to hold the leaves. I'm hoping with use, it'll get easier to slide the leaves into though
When I first got the table I wondered if I would regret passing on the topper block, but I haven't. With my use, I only ever take the leaves off during a game, and usually only 3-4 at a time to reveal whatever is built below, so I have no trouble just lining them up against a wall.
Happy to be watching your review again now that we have our table. Have to do the mat thing, will be great for games and preventing our cat from playing with the felt.
Water/Soda bottles are the heaviest thing I've put in there, so nothing extreme. However, I will note that the magnets don't hold the weight, they just keep the cup holder from sliding away from the table. The weight is being held by the end of the cup holder being sandwiched between two pieces of wood that are just barely far enough apart to let the cup holder slide into place.
Good review. Does the magnetic strip go all the way around the outside of the table for the drink holders and other accessories? Or is it just on the long sides of the table?
And there are still many people after you who've not yet received their table still - I know I'm quite blessed to have been able to get it as early as I did, but glad you finally got yours!
We backed the current kickstarter and are looking at getting a similar size table. I’m really looking forward to hosting some board game nights and/or a D&D session since my friends have mentioned wanting to try it. I’ve only played a couple times, so I’m nervous to DM, but also very excited :-)
I backed the current kickstarter also to add more accessories as I find the table to be a wonderful investment. Best of luck when you do try your hand at running a game, I find it great fun myself, but am aware it can seem daunting when you're not used to it.
So what if any sort of accessories did you discover you could make use of, that they don’t make? I’ve been waiting on the hexagonal table ( square room ) and will be doing the soon to be launched Kickstarter for the hex table variant. From your review , and given the hex table seats 6, seems like a 6 small cup holders and 6 large cup holders (for whiskey glasses for example ) is a no brainer. Beyond that I’m wondering if player desks are a thing you considered. Or component trays. This always seemed odd. Yeah it raises the bits up, but that footprint still exists and hides the space underneath.
I've not thought of accessories that they don't make, but the one that I didn't get that I could use other than more cup holders is the game deck, but I wanted to wait until they show how they will add storage to the new version of it. I think the player desks look very nice, but I really don't have room for them with my current gaming setup, so that's why I skipped those. I don't have use for component trays, they seem good if you play a lot of board games with little pieces, which is not something I play often enough to need them. As far as their footprint hiding what is below them, you could put them on the outside of the table too or to the side of players where they can access both on top and below them.
I still remember your original video where you unpacked & assembled it, hoping the delivery company didn't mangle it. 🙂Am still totally jealous of that awesome table.
We're happy with ours We did get the "new" version of espresso and it shows every little blemish which is disconcerting. The cool part is we can use Perm Marker and "color" over the scratches and w/in a day you can't tell we did it. I would love to see how natural wood behaves to scratch and dents. In my mind's eye they'd hide it much better... but I could be wrong
I'll be getting some more cupholders which will be the 'new' darker espresso, so I'll get a chance to see how different it really is. I'll also be getting a hobby vault in maple since espresso went away, and not being able to afford true dark woods, I went with a contrast of the lightest wood instead. On my lighter espresso table, dents look fine - just adding character - but scratches look pretty bad and aren't easy to get rid of (I've not tried walnuts, but hear that may work...)
My house has a lot of black and white mixed decor, so if I couldn't get black the next best thing was something white - the yellowish color of the elm would seem more odd given the rest of my home. -but for someone with more natural wood colors, that would work well.
I literally just watched your unboxing video yesterday, hoe do these tables do for regular old board games? is it hard to reach the opposite sides? or is this mainly for rpg and the like?
The only 'regular board game' I've played on it so far is HeroQuest, and it's worked well for that. On the longer sides you can easily reach most of the way across the table, on the short ends you can only reach maybe half way.
I mostly do board games and puzzles, and had a pre-planned game night that happened to fall the same week as when my table arrived. Got the table and unpacked everything only to realize that they’d forgotten the hardware (yes, I tore the boxes apart looking for it, especially the shield sides). They shipped me a separate box with hardware which arrived the same day as game night… so our first “game” was to work together to assemble the table. The medium table worked great for five people playing Arkham Horror and Terraforming Mars. Lots of space to spread out the components and still have unblocked room for rolling dice. If you half-stand it’s easy to reach all the way across the short direction. But my group is used to either standing to reach or asking someone else to move a piece, so none of us had a problem and all very much enjoyed the size and the vault. Even though the darker matches my other ikea furniture better, I do wish I’d gotten the old lighter espresso. The darker one is still beautiful though; I kept finding myself just running my hand along it and stroking the table edges as we played. I’m looking forward to seeing how it does with a couple of 3000 piece puzzles now that I can just put the topper on when it’s time to eat dinner!
