Crystal Fortress approached me earlier in the year and asked if I wanted to try one of their storage cases. I had not seen or heard of this brand before so I took them up on the offer.

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I did receive this Crystal Fortress item free of charge, but this is an honest and full review. I was sent a 1/4 Cube Bundle with accessories to kit it out. The 1/4 Cube bundle comes with 3 cases and a cover. Specifically, it comes with two of the small Beluga Cases, one of the medium Orca Cases, and an Orca cover to top it off. In addition to this, they included some of their other products so I can get a taste of the full Crystal Fortress system.

My Crystal Fortress Case

Belugas are small size, Orcas are the medium and Humpbacks are large.

Firstly, let us break down how Crystal Fortress cases are put together…

Below you can see how the cases are put together. The red outline is a 2″ Cover, there are two shown here that each cover half of the case. The covers come in 1″, 2″ and 4″ in height, which is handy because you can get a larger cover to give more height to your cases.

The blue outline is an Orca case, there are two side-by-side then each has one on top for a total of four Orca cases in this image. There is another above it too.  Finally, the green outline is the large Humpback case. There are two side-by-side here as well.

That is the basic setup, you have cases, sometimes on top of each other and sometimes side-by-side. Then a cover goes over the top cases.

Delivery & Packing

The pictures below speak for themselves here. Everything was very well packaged and there was no chance of the acrylic being damaged, snapped or bent. The contents came from the USA to me in the UK – no issues. The box was packed well and the acrylic is inside the black cardboard box shown below. It was pretty heavy and the black box is sturdy too. I realised later that this black box forms part of the final storage solution. Neat!

Crystal Fortress Contents

Inside the black cardboard box are your pieces of acrylic and a very nice cloth for cleaning your new Crystal Fortress case. As you can see it all fits in neatly and there are some extra spacers around the edge. It is a minor thing but the spacers make it feel well thought out and professional.

All the Crystal Fortress acrylic has a thin plastic sheet on it which needs to be peeled off before assembly – I assume to protect them. This takes a while to do and is actually pretty easy. It comes away in one piece each time – no little bits leftover and messing about.

Some of the other pieces like the transport strap, case pads, targets and magnets are not in the cardboard black box. Those are the extra accessories bits to really complete the storage solution.

Crystal Fortress box contents

Crystal Fortress Case Build

I had no idea what to expect from this process – as I could not find any construction details on the site, although I did not look very hard. I did not look hard because I wanted to get into it cold, so to speak.

Anyway, it is a simple process to build the case and the instructions are clear.

The way it all fits together is ingenious and is secure. Each of the pieces has either a Tabs (rounded protrusions with circular hole) and/or Slots (holes cut to fit a Tab & Locking Ball). You place the locking ball into a slot, these are silicone, they are tough but have some give in them. You then slide the tab over the locking ball and bam it’s on! The friction and very neat fit between the ball and the tab means it just stays in place. No glue!

And that all there is to it. You put the balls in the slots and then carefully slide the tabs over them being careful not to bend the acrylic – it will snap I am sure if you are not careful.

Layout Layers, Targets & Magnets

My Crystal Fortress case was shipped with Layout Layers, Targets and Magnets.

Layout Layers are inserts that fit into the Cases or on top of the Covers. They are cut to a variety of base sizes including ovals and squares for X-Wing.

Targets are circles which has one sticky side that you place into the round cut-outs of the Layout Layers. They are not magnetic and are made from a ferrous material that is able to hold magnets well but with very little resistance to avoid snapping any models. The magnets go on the underside of your models.

So you place the Layout Layer into your case, stick the Targets into the Layout Layer holes, glue magnets to your model’s bases and they are easily placed in and out! The larger case I had used a target, but it was a type of Iron Sheet, no Layout Layer. So you can place whatever you want on here, weird bases shapes for example. You will see below that this currently houses my Raven Guard.

Crystal Fortress Instructions

Crystal Fortress Case Usage & Summary

As a storage case, I have found the Crystal Fortress system to be very useful. Firstly it is nice to see your models in a case – saves you searching all over for them! I have a transport strap with mine so I can easily carry it to games.

At first, I was unsure how this system would work for a horde army of Guardsmen like mine. But actually it works really well. Space-wise it is very efficient. You have no need for foam so everything can be closer together and tightly placed. There is maybe 5 or 6mm between each Guardsmen in the picture below and their footprint is smaller too because they are stood up and not lay down. This single Beluga case holds 16 Guardsmen with ease, in a relatively small space.

And as you can see, they stay in place too! See videos of me shaking them below.

I would say that this product is not for Vehicles though, you would struggle to fit magnets on your vehicles to make them work in the case. But for infantry and elite 40K armies, it is superb. I plan on using mine for all my none Cadian, Valhallans and Catachans. I will expand it I think and it can house…

• Steel Legion – shown below
• Raven Guard – shown below in the gallery
• Ratlings
• Custodians – this is where a deeper cover comes in handy
• Other none Regiment Astra Militarum models –  like Eisenhorn

This is the small case, the Beluga – you can see my models fit into the Layout Layer for 25mm bases

Crystal Fortress Gallery

Steel Legion Crystal Fortress Shake Test

Raven Guard Crystal Fortress Shake Test