Friday 9 August 2013

Before Mighty Fortress came...Exin Castillos!

Many of you who first got into fantasy wargaming in the mid-1980's will remember with fondness Mighty Fortress, the first modular set of fortifications designed by Games Workshop. But did you know that in the early 1980's Citadel were advocating the use of Exin Castillos with their figures, a modular castle produced in Spain, and in every sense a "toy"? This image below is from a flyer that Citadel produced circa 1984 where it was offering Exin Castillos for £19.95 - pretty pricey back then, particularly when you consider that Mighty Fortress was retailing for £19.99 in 1988.


Mighty Fortress has gone the way of the dodo, but a quick Google search suggests that Exin Castillos is alive and well, and now available in a variety of shapes and sizes.

6 comments:

  1. Ohhh! Amazing! So in the UK you also had access to Exin Castillos!

    Me and my friends loved Exin Castillos. Those and the Tente blocks (another Spanish construction toy) were responsible of turning me into a modeller (and an engineer!).

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  2. Woo, Exin Castillos! Didn't know you also got those in the UK!
    I totally agree, 'Tente' had the coolest construction sets ever!

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  3. Pretty sure we've still got a set of those at home. My wife spent a few years of her childhood (early 1970s) in Spain so they must have come over when her family moved back to the UK.

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  4. I had an aunt that lived in Spain for thirty years and every time she came to visit she would bring me a set of these...Wonderful stuff and I still have a huge box of them at my parents house that I will bring to VT for my kids to play with when I get a chance.....

    ....who am I kidding....I want to play with them!

    I used these as fortifications that my Dwarf sappers would build to protect my artillery during 3rd ed games.....many happy hours with Castillios! I had no idea there was a Citadel connection.

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  5. Yes, Suber!

    Tentes were so much better than the toys available today.

    Here are some of the ones I personally owned. They were amazing, and very sci-fi too:
    Cosmic
    Stingdrake
    Skymaster
    Transcomputer

    Sadly, my mother gave all of them to charity when I was 18-19... :(

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  6. There is an article in an old White Dwarf (somewhere between issue 40 and 50) that describes the battle of Pelennor Fields using 1st edition Warhammer. IIRC, the gates of Minas Tirith are modeled using an Exin castle.

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