Couple questions from someone with no Castles

[period3]

I think the square towers are the most versatile. You can use them as towers, or to make CBS buildings, or even as dungeons (albeit very square dungeons). They also have the widest variety of toppings: the corner crenellations, high corner crenellations, square battlements, stone roofs, tudor roof, large lower roof, and cathedral roofs all fit.

They also don't need special parts to make corners. Just run a wall straight into one face of a square tower, and another wall out of another face. No adapters or corner cut-outs needed. Because they're CBS, they accomodate a wider variety of doors from CBS (both single and double doors), and have more wall options availaable: solid, gothic-looking windows, arrow slits, windows with inserts (curtains, bars, shutters, etc.), torch walls, and arch-walls.

[GODofwar]

Thanks again for the responses. I've got a couple more questions.

Aside from size, is there any real advantage of the Watchtower (or other large tower) vs smaller towers vs the square tower (the one made from City parts)?

Are any of those three better or worse at being expandable? Vertically or otherwise?

Tyrant, when we play, each player has a 25mm figure, an as-close-to-same-as-possible 15mm figure, and a 5mm figure. If we do small towers, i shift to the 15mm figs even if we were using 25mm outside the tower. Sounds awkward but it works and 15mm give you nearly 4x the relative floor space....

otherwise concur with analysis above.

The Chief Least Weasel of Valoria (Pretendant)
Totus KS Delenda Sunt

[zenako]

For gameplay, the large tower provides a lot more room on each floor for characters or enemies to move about and for more furnishings. The small towers are really tight on space for gameplay. For storage, all the round towers present some storage issues since the curved walls, while they nest, do not nest tightly. I actually keep most of my round towers assembled as floors and then store other stuff inside each floor.

[Vegomatic]

Square towers use city builder floors, walls, and posts and are therefore more stable higher (although any of them can go sufficiently tall). They also are square and do not require special pieces to connect them to walls... although the offset door pieces are really nice for centering a door on a castle wall. Square tower pieces are usable as other buildings. If you want round buildings, so are towers.

All the pieces to make taller towers are available regardless of style.

All that being said, I find the large round towers more esthetically pleasing and have invested in those.

On a budget or storage issues... square towers are generally more multi pupose and they take less storage space.

[Tyrant]

Thanks again for the responses. I've got a couple more questions.

Aside from size, is there any real advantage of the Watchtower (or other large tower) vs smaller towers vs the square tower (the one made from City parts)?

Are any of those three better or worse at being expandable? Vertically or otherwise?

[kgallaghar]

During the Kickstarter, I got the gatehouse separately. It was the only thing I bought. Didn't come with the ramparts like the one currently in the store. It looks like it will be part of the restock, too (Barbican Gatehouse). The towers (I bought one just recently - four levels) and the gatehouse are the big "must haves" from the castle sets, in my view. Now if I had room to store even more, I'd get a castle.

[Vegomatic]

Necromancer theme... some of those items hook over a wall... The head on a pike will fit in any accessory hole. I don't have any of the other pieces so I cannot say.

The gatehouse was not sold separately. So buying a Rampart, for instance, would get you a gatehouse and a few short walls.

There are two kinds of spacers... Wall Spacers and Cube Spacers. The wall spacers are single width and intended to hold up walls (or be a walkway between walls). The cube spacers are really just double width wall spacers and are used for making double thick walls. Outside of that they are basically just elevation blocks with magnets and metal in them (so that walls will stick to them, and they stick together). They do work with bridges. They work as elevation blocks as well. Forgot to mention those when listing pieces useful in a dungeon.

[Tyrant]

Thanks for the help everyone. To clarify question 6, I mean the Necromancer Theme.

I don't see the Gatehouse in the shop. Is that the Barbican Gatehouse on the restock list?

As far as Cube Spacers, am I seeing their picture in the shop correctly and they are being used with the bridge pieces from the Stone Bridge? If so, does this work for anyone that has tried?

[zenako]

One comment about how often you might use things. Keep in mind that once you have the Towers or Castle parts, you are far more likely to adapt encounters to take advantage of those goodies. That little way station on the road is perhaps part of a location with a fortified watchtower from days gone by when a war was going on. A small fortified wall around a village for defense. One can adapt pretty easily as long as you are not too focused on sticking to what someone else wrote or described about a location. When playing with long-term veteran players, it also helps to mix things up so they won't become too complacent about what is presented to them.

[kitenerd]

1) YES
2) Cube Spacers are fun in KS1 - 8x8 floors are helpful
3) Stone bridge looks awesome
4) YES - fancy dungeon
5) Not strong enough - they added pins - the metal is external on some of these pieces so they are not as visually appealing as they might be - in use it is a non issue, but it is a little surprising when you open them
6) huh? the walls magnet to the wall spacers - this works well
7) I would wait until you think you need a tower - i have run lots of tower encounters, but not one since getting castles (i don't GM much these days) - mine looks awesome on a shelf, but it is an expensive diorama and if you are a GM on a budget i think you can do better - Ditto for Gatehouse - cool, but how often?

Consider Ruined Tower to use as scatter terrain - the remains of a castle seems to come up a lot in my adventures - a few sections of wall on a battlemat and you have a scene

Good luck!