Something is about to happen which has not happened for an age … a WS&TZ unboxing! Yesterday I picked up the new Blood Bowl wood elves release, the Athelorn Avengers and thought I’d do a little unboxing for you all.

First up is the box! And the back of the box! Showing you all the things a box does. And the first thing I pulled out were the bases. Your typical 32mm Blood Bowl bases. You’ll notice they have slots. Foreshadowing!

Alright now here’s the good stuff. The sprues! You get two identical sprues each have 3x line elves, 1x thrower, 1x catcher and 1x wardancer. It also includes turn counters and 3x balls.

And next the paper goods. The transfer sheet looks pretty cool, you’ve got your basic numbers and position names, but the symbols look pretty cool. I might use some as tattoos for my wardancers since I’ve never tried my hand at that sort of freehanding. And the instruction sheets, I figured it would be handy to include those in case anyone manages to lose their sheet and need some help assembling them.

Let’s get assembling! First I did the three linemen. I assembled most of the minis according to the default instructions just to show you how they come together. All of the minis have two head options and the lineman have a total of five mask options. Yes all the lineman have those weird masks that some people don’t like but I’m OK with them. I am curious to know if the face options from the elven union minis would fit on these heads, but as I didn’t have any unassembled elven union minis I coudn’t test this. The keen eyed observers among you readers will notice that the wood elves don’t have slots. Cue panic! This is was not an issue for most of the minis, well except one. I used a trick I had read about elsewhere of using match sticks to fill the gaps in the base. However if you don’t like the holes for the ball pegs then you can simply use normal 32mm round bases.

Next is the linewoman. In this kit, two of the linemen are male and one is female. I like the striding forward pose but the outstretched hand is maybe a little odd? Looks like a good pose for the Fend skill, but I don’t think that’s a skill most wood elf players take. Maybe she’s slapping her opponent as a block action. I think it’s a cool pose to use in converting up an AoS or 40k character.

The final lineman pose. This guy actually has two options for his left hand, which is more open rather than clinched in a fist. It won’t make a huge difference two making distinct minis, but it’ll certainly help when I build the rest of the modes. I appreciate that overall the wood elf poses aren’t all in super dramatic poses, flipping and flopping all over the place like some third party miniatures. Nor are they cheesecake poses, again like some third party miniatures.

The trio together. Instilling fear in the opposition’s line of scrimmage by deftly dodging away. Or more likely for me, failing the first of many dodge rolls and then breaking armor and getting injured. My luck with elves so far has not been good.

Here we have the first female throwers produced by Games Workshop. Sorry, Amazons, wood elves beat you to the punch, or throw. Obviously the wood elves were sculpted well in advance of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, but I couldn’t help but build my first thrower as an homage to American hero Megan Rapinoe! I’m even tempted to replicate her winning purple/pink hair.

Gotta catch ’em all! This is probably my list favorite model of the kit. It’s not bad, but it’s so stylized for a position that you can have four of on the pitch. Also this is the model that I struggled to glue on the base. The contact point on his trailing leg is so small, it fell over after I thought it was good and stuck. I had to prop it up for a while, leaning against a PVA glue bottle so it could cure.

And now, the star player, the wardancer! I like the dynamic running pose of this model. Although for the best player in the game I think he’s a little understated for the best payer in the game. I miss the mohawk and mask look, but the masks were used for the elven union team and other players on this team have mohawk options.

The trio of positionals.

Finally we have the tokens and balls. The Atherlorn Avengers kit breaks the mold (not literally I hope!) for tokens, eschewing the hand and opting instead for a face. But it’s the face of none other than Orion, the elven god of the hunt. I really enjoy this nod to the classic Wayne England wood elf icon artwork. The coin features a wood elf symbol that resembles a rune more than a team logo which I think is cool. Of the balls, one appears to have a swirly elvish design, another is wrapped in vines and the peg ball as a sprite perched on top.

 

Overall I like the wood elf team. I wasn’t convinced by the body glove look as I was not a fan of the old 3rd edition team (the 2nd edition sculpts by Jes Goodwin are far superior) but I think this is a nice update. The kit is multipart but it doesn’t have as many tiny pieces as the elven union or dark elf kits. The multiple head and mask options are very nice to have and will help break up the look when you have repeat sculpts on your team.

I decided to take some comparison pics with the other elf team I own, the elven union. Don’t judge me by the condition of the elven union models! I picked them up from a bits box of used minis at the FLGS and let’s just say the build job was a little shoddy.

You’ll notice the wood elves look a lot slimmer than their beefier elven union cousins. They really do look like they are AV7 while the elf union models really look like they should be AV8 rather than mostly AV7 that they are.

Stay tuned, I’m planning on getting three of these guys painted up by Tuesday.