The Red Castle

"Castell Coch " by Steve Collis from Melbourne, Australia -
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 

Previous Episode: March of the Cybermen

The Red Castle- With Dalek Billboard

Next Episode: Ascent of the Governess

Game version played: 2.5

Doctor Who Legacy boosts its environmental credentials by recycling another background. The Red Castle is set in Tongwynlais, Wales but the castle looks exactly like Natty Longshoe’s Comical Castle on Hedgewick’s World of Wonders, the backdrop to Nightmare in Silver: Mr. Clever. A quick Google search revealed that Tongwynlais is overshadowed by Castell Coch, which translates into English as Red Castle. Compare the art to the photograph. Yes, Castell Coch was used as a location in Nightmare in Silver. It also featured in Jouney’s End and The Vampires ofVenice. It seems a little churlish to moan about DWL reusing art when the show revisits locations.

The Red Castle level is not TV and we can nab Red and/or Green Time Fragments. There is also another Rare Drop opportunity. The portrait is Yellow and shows a woman in a military helmet and goggles. It could be LadyGaga but that seems unlikely. We’ll have to win her to find out who she is.

My team for the level is The 11th Doctor at Rank 2, Jenny Flint at Lvl.7 and Madame Vastra, Porridge and Rory Williams at Lvl.6.

Wave 1 of 3 brings us a Yellow Cyberman with a Lock power, flanked by two Green Cybermats. This first wave wasn’t a complete walk over as I took 40 points of damage, got a gem locked and it took three rounds to clear. The Cyberman left a Red Time Fragment behind him.

Wave 2 had three Yellow Cybermen. I did better this wave and killed them in two rounds without taking damage. Again I got a Red Fragment as reward.

The final Wave was all Green with two Cybermites and our old mate the chess playing Cyberman, let’s call him Kasparov for short. Kasparov was readying a Reboot power, which would summon reinforcements should one of the Cybermites fall. We’ve seen this kind of power before and it can lead to a grinding, drawn out battle. My tactic was to target the Grand Master straight away otherwise I might have been there all day.

I hit Kasparov for about 50% damage, then Jenny Flint’s Smoulder power readied itself. Perfect timing again. She turned several Blue Gems to Red, setting up a nice series of combos in my next round. The Green Cybers all took double damage and were gone in a flash.

Victory was declared but once again no character dropped. For me that's 0 drops out of 3 chances now. I’m cool with that. Rare means 10% chance at most in my mind. I don’t know what the actual frequency is in the game, if anyone does let us know in the comments.

My reward for the level was two Red Time Fragments and enough experience to promote Vastra and Porridge to Lvl.7. I boosted ATK and HP respectively.

Punishment Soldier at Lvl.20
Lady Gaga, definitely

Although I didn’t get the drop this time, I have won the Lady Gaga lookalike in my main game. The Companion is Punishment Soldier. The DWL wiki says ‘he’ but she looks like a lady to me. The Punishment Platoon appeared in Nightmare In Silver, generally as cannon fodder though a few were named individually. This Companion seems to be a generic soldier rather than one of the specific characters.

She’s Yellow and classed as an offensive character due to her high ATK. Her special power is Focus Fire which hits all enemies for 100 damage. This is a bit puny compared to Vastra’s 150 points of Riposte damage, but the Punishment Soldier fires every 8 turns instead of Vastra’s 9. Like Strax, Punishment Soldier is on Experience track 1 so she’s one of the fastest progressing Companions, much faster than Vastra on Track 4.

Is she worth a slot in your team? Well if I had all of the Rare Drops possible by this level then I’d have Yellow Adipose, Strax and now Punishment Soldier. Up to now I’ve recommended Yellow Adipose plus the 11th Doctor, Jenny Flint, Vastra and Rory. Firstly would I bump Yellow Adipose for Punishment Soldier? No. Yellow Adipose is good support for both Vastra and the Punishment Soldier if selected, so I’d stick with fatty.

There is an argument for replacing Vastra with the new girl. If you’re still winning levels comfortably then you might be able to stand the loss of 50 points of direct damage plus the attribute points Vastra has earned. You could then select Punishment Soldier in order to reach to higher levels quicker. However Punishment Soldier starts with stats of 43 HP, 13 HEAL and 55 ATK. With my Vastra now at Lvl.7 she has 94 HP, 22 HEAL and 142 ATK. That's a lot of attributes to give up. 

Why not try a few levels with different team members? Bring some variety to your life and see which team make-up you like. The 'best' team doesn't have to be the one that makes it easiest to win.