First things first, I was privileged enough to get a set of several comped pieces of castle features from Epix Haven for the purposes of this review. I got the Gatehouse, Corner Tower, Walls, Stairs and felt Battlemat.

You know that scene at the beginning of what feels like every single film or series set in medieval times, the one where the knight charges out through the castle gates? That's what immediately comes to mind when you lay eyes on the Gatehouse set. It's designed to be the point of entry to a large castle complex, and it makes a formidable defensive structure. This piece features four levels of elevation: a ground floor, two higher stories and the top of the tower.

First Impressions

What's impressive about this piece is the story that its design sems to tell. The base comes in several pieces that combine to create a straight arcade through the tower and into the courtyard within. There are walls with loopholes from which hidden archers can fire at invaders who breach the first set of doors but have yet to make it past the second. The floor of the second story has a large hole with a grate for pouring hot oil down on your foes. The grate is removable so the valiant defenders can leap down onto their enemies once their cauldrons are empty, or so that infiltrators can make a hasty escape. Besides making each level visually distinct from the next, it also makes the whole setup seem like it was designed by a practically-minded medieval engineer.

The Corner Tower features doorways at 90-degree angles that line up perfectly with the Walls. A door at the botton inside provides an entrance so the defenders can rush to various points within the wall.

The Wall kit includes two sections, each with two stories inside and a top rampart. The Walls line up very well with the Corner Tower, but they're somewhat offset from the doorways into the Gatehouse. While the Gatehouse comes with four insertable sets of stairs to to level things out, the Wall sections I assembled were off far enough on the Gatehouse to where the doorway from one floor was sticking up partway visible from the top of the Wall.

The Stairs and Battlemats are useful additions. Without the stairs there's no way (within the logic of a story) for characters to make it into the higher levels of the tower(there are no stairs from the first floor to the second, and no way from the main entrance of the tower to the upper floors or into the walls. Add the corner tower and you're good to go. This sounds confusing on paper, but it makes sense from a defensive point of view.

The decision to use the stairs or not depends on if your players are the defenders or invaders. As the defenders they aren't going to want to run through the Corner Gate and back to the Gate House once the enemy starts coming through, so it's good to have stairs set up. As the invaders you're probably going to want the players to have to earn the castle, so leaving the stairs out and forcing them to run through the Gate House to the Corner Gate, back to the defensive portions of the first floor to neutralize the guards, bak to the Corner Gate, up to the second floor to take care of the sentries above the grate, back to the Corner Gate yet again and up to the top to deal with archers is going to be more frantic and fun than simply letting them charge the gate and run directly to the exterior stairs. Or not. It's your call. The only thing about the stairs is that I wish they came with some sort of "adapter" piece that features inverted stair steps so that you could place figures on the steps.

These pieces aren't pristine. There are intentional gouges and dings that tell you this castle sees regular action. I'm personally not a fantasy gamer. I prefer historical, sci-fi and other genres. What's outstanding about the design is that it foregoes a lot of the conventions found in fantasy gaming (dragon skulls on the towers, spiky spires, etc.) and goes for a more grounded look. This regal castle wold be at home in medieval Europe, as a space opera fortress or in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. As you can see from the pictures, I have it set up to be a sokovian or Latverian castle in Heroclix.

Construction and Assembly

The main pieces (I'm not sure about the doors and the grate) are made from high-grade resin. I suspect that it's the same or a similar material to the kind used for lawn birdbaths. It's strong, feels like stone and makes a satisfying sound when you slide the components together. They're heavy. Like the whole Gatehouse has to weigh near ten pounds, and the other models aren't much lighter. Felt on the bottom keeps it all from sliding, especially when you set the towers and walls up on Epix Haven's felt battlemat. There aren't any instructions, and for the most part that's fine. The Gatehouse is a bit more complex than the other models but I was able to figure it out after looking at pictures.

Issues

Nothing's perfect, even this series of buidling pieces. They all come hand-painted, which is part of Epix Haven's philosophy of supplying ready-made scenery for busy players and GMs. I personally don't have time for it, but I know that there are many folks who would love to paint their own castles. Since they're indvidually done there's no way to ensure color consistency from one piece to another. As such, my Wall set looks slightly different from the Gatehouse or the Corner Tower. The price is nothing to sneeze at, but it's my opinion that the durable construction and quality of the sculpt really makes it a fair value.

While the walls have multiple towers, you're not going to be able to easily run scenarios with characters on separate floors because you can't see inside the walls

What I'd Like to See

Just setting up and looking at the castle kits gets the creative juices flowing. I would really like to see a line of accessories for personalizing the towers and walls, The Gatehouse begs for a portcullis and drawbridge. Various angled corners would be very useful for setting up octagonal, hexagonal or triangular fortresses and allow for more variety than the simple squares. Add-on scenery, such as banners and vines, would be fantastic for personalizing the setup since there's currently no real difference to break up the wall and tower sections.

XP

Epix Haven has a customer loyalty program in place called XP. You get codes with most items that you can enter into their website. This can lead to discounts or other offers yet to be determined. Getting up to a higher level gives you access to exclusive forums where you have a greater chance to influence the designers. Out of the five pieces I received, only the Stairs didn't have XP codes. The Epix Haven website doesn't currently list which pieces don't come with XP, which I feel is an oversight. The Battle Mat, Gatehouse, Corner Gate and Walls come with 3,400 total XP, which is enough to level someone up to "Adventurer", which according to the prices on the website work out to about 12.5 cents per XP. This puts us at an (estimated) cost of 1,500 bucks to get access to the special forum. Creating a complete castle with 3 Wall sections (there are 2 Wall sections per box) on each side, with one segment replaced with a Gatehouse, 4 Corner Towers and a Battle Mat is about $1,440. Add in one fothe Stone Houses or Tudor Houses (the Tudor House review is available here on RPG.net thanks to Cedric Chin), and you should be able to get access to the special forum.

Last Words

All in all, if you can afford the price and have the space in your home (the boxes are massive), I'd recommend these products. They're modular so you can customize your buildings, and the manufacturer plans on expanding the line so you can continue to add value to your miniatures collection.