Horus Heresy – Mechanicum Castellax Battle-automata

The third infantry unit from the new Mechanicum Battle Group are the Castellax Battle-Automata. Another former resin kit, recreated in hard plastic.

While being quite bigger and carrying a heavier punch than the tech-thralls and thallax cohort, these still count as a troop choice and you can use a single miniature as a maniple of its own and add up to 4 further Castellax Battle-Automata to that unit.

The Castellax was the most numerous variant of the Castellan and was extensively used during the Horus Heresy, both by the Legio Cybernetica as well as Forge Worlds. It was produces in such high numbers, that some within the Imperium had their concerns, that the Mechanicum would be a serious threat for the Empire of Mankind, should their alliance ever break. But the Horus Heresy happened and thousands of Castellax were be destroyed in that conflict, with their numbers never replenished.

The design of the Castellax has its root back in the Rogue Trader days, as one of the Imperial Robots, and while some patterns were further developed into dreadnoughts of the Legiones Astartes, this one would be part of the Mechanicum. Within the lore, the armour technology is shared with the Contemptor Class dreadnoughts.

The set of sprues covers enough parts to build two Castellax Battle-Automata on 60mm round bases.

Just like the Thallax Cohort, the Castellax Battle-Automata is spread across two different sprue designs, with an uneven number. You get two sprues A, with the parts for the main body and a single sprue B, with the weapon options for this kit.

The legs come in two poses, pose A has a left leg in front, pose B the other one in front. As we're going to build a single Castellax, we're going with pose A. The legs are quite fixed, and even as the hips are ball joints, the knees are not flexible and the ankles are rectangular and not ball joints, limiting the options how they connect to the base, especially any base decoration / sculpted bases.

The upper torso is a very detailled build. The rounded shape is well recreated in plastic, the individual parts are cleverly cut and split, and this again is an impressive testimony how they transfered the resin kit into this hard plastic kit. So far, no variants or option, but the base for the further weapon mounts and variants.

The Castellax Battle-Automata is armed with an mauler bolt cannon, but that weapon system can be replaced with either a Darkfire Cannon or a Multi-Melta. The sprue covers enough parts to arm both Castellax with Mauler Bolt-Cannons, and one each with either a Darkfire Cannon or Multi-Melta. We went with the Multi-Melta for the further steps.

Each weapon system comes with a ammo box added to the lower back and an ammunition feed to the weapon. This fixes the weapon in place and limits all of them from being angled/turned or modified in any way.

Regarding the close combat / hand weaponry, there are several options. The stock option are the Shock Chargers, of which there are two sets included. These can be build in different positions, open and closed, along with different position for the "thumb blade".

The shock chargers can be replaced with either siege wreckers (max on per model) or power blade arrays. The siege wrecker is not included (but wasn't available as a resin upgrade either, most people converted the siege drill from the Leviathan Dreadnought), and there are only two power blade arrays included per weapon sprue, which limits their maximum usage of four for both models.

The built in bolters can be replaced with either flamers or maxima bolters, there are only bits for the regular bolters and flamers in this kit. The step for the lower arm armour is a bit unclear, as you could read it, as only the shock chargers would receive that, this is not the case. There are three different elbows / upper arm poses available,and they give you a bit of freedom for positioning the arms. Yet, not directly clear which arm creates which pose in the end.

After this step, the multi-part shoulders are added, consisting out of a cylindrical inner armour pad, and a extended more curved outer armour. The arms are connected with a ball joint to the upper body and prodive you with a bit of flexibility.

Last but not least the final shot of the Castellax Battle-Automata, with mixed armed option - a Multi-Melta, a single power blade and shock charger, with mixed flamer and bolter weapons on the hands.

Conclusion

As I said in the article itself, once again a very impressive transition from a resin kit into a plastc kit. The captured the design very well and created an easy (easier) to handle kit, with a few options and certainly more stable than the resin kit. The model itself is very uniform, and I am aware those are mass-produced armour patterns, but some minor variants, like a different "dome", an ornated shoulder plate or something like that. The legs could have been more articulated, giving you the option for more poses, but I understand from the limited space in the sprue and that you don't want to overload the customer.

With the exception of the siege wrecker all current option for the Castellax are covered and I think the Thousand Son exclusive variant of the Castellax Achea is too different, as that you could capture that with a sprue swap.

We don't have a price for these yet, but I assume we will see at 55 EUR price tag, similar to the Hermes Sentinels Squadron (Same amount of sprues, same size of bases), which seems reasonable for this model.

Warhammer 40,000 and The Horus Heresy are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.