Made-to-Order Blood Bowl Halflings
In late June, just before my vacation, Games Workshop announced another wave of made-to-order Blood Bowl teams on Warhammer Community, among them the Halflings.
Games Workshop would offer the 3rd edition Blood Bowl Team of Halflings from 1994 for a week. It was sculpted by Gary Morley back in the day (I thought those were done by the Perrys, as they took care of the halflings for the regular Warhammer range) and the miniatures aren't bad for a set of more than 20 year old sculpts. They added the cook from the halfling hot pot catapult as the special staff to this team. That guy was sculpted by Alan Perry.
There were several sets available, one including a more modern Blood Bowl Treeman, but I went with the vanilla one of 12 halflings and the cook. I ordered it on June 24th and as Games Workshop doesn't stock them but casts them to order, states a delivery time of about 3 weeks. My parcel was despatched roughly one and half week later on July 6th and arrived early the following week.
Games Workshop ships them in the plain white cardboard boxes that are used for Mail Order products for a long time, especially back then when metal miniatures were a broad part of the range. Inside is a clear plastic blister holding the 13 miniatures along with some old 25mm round slot bases. They used to be more generous with this in the past, but now they are accurately counted.
This team without big guys, but with the cook staff, was set at 42 Euro. At 13 miniatures, that ends up at 3 Euro per miniature, which is a fair and usual price for metal for my opinion. If you wanted to buy this one second hand, it could have been difficult to get your hands on at all and most likely would end up spending around 50-75 Euro. I was pleasantly surprised that they covered all of the 6 original poses and each of them twice. Sometimes with recasts or larger sets of miniatures, poses get dropped or are lost and the focus is more on getting you the amount of miniatures you ordered, not exactly a balanced assortment.
The casting is properly done and seems to be made from the original masters / casts, as there are no duplicate mold lines or weak details. There is a bit of flash and minor mold lines to get rid off, but in total common work as we are used to with metal miniatures.
I have quite a selection of Blood Bowl teams (most of them from the 3rd Edition), but never had any stunties (Goblins or Halflings), and with the price being reasonable I took the chance and got myself them as a set. Easier and safer than hassling through the facebook groups etc. I decided against the Blood Bowl treeman, as the miniature was added in 2000 for the 4th edition to the range and doesn't fit very well with the Oldhammer vibe of the Morley / Perry sculpts. For that reason I went looking for two classic wood elves treeman, as those were offered back in the 90s as Big Guys / Star Players for the 3rd edition Blood Bowl Halflings. It was treeman A, that was promoted as Deeproot Strongbranch, but I got myself both treeman, A and B, for more variety.
As Games Workshop ditched the translations of the further Blood Bowl rules, I refused to buy the second season of Deathzone. But that is not a problem, as the PDF with the rules for the halfling are available - legally and officially - by Games Workshop.
I like the Made-to-Order service by Games Workshop. Some of the offers are reasonable and it is a better choice than many scalpers online. Many of the prices in the trading groups or ebay are just ridiculous and you have to be aware of the risk of recasts. As with Blood Bowl / Fantasy Football, there is a broad selection of third company products around. Even for Halflings. As I had bad experience with Willy Miniatures in the past (brittle lead used for casting, so the surface was very rough and had cracks, sometimes miniatures would even break), their two teams were to expensive for my taste and not offering the quality that I was looking for. A better alternative, if you don't to go with the original, would be the Black Scorpions Halfling team. They offer a small set of 10 halflings and a treeman for 25 GBP or the full 14 halflings and 2 treeman (unfortunately doubles) for just 40 GBP. Quite a deal and the casting is pleasant. If you're looking for something around Blood Bowl, I can only recommend this project - Blood Bowl Miniatures. It is a huge ressource for almost every Blood Bowl miniature available or produced.
Never the less, I'm happy with my classic Halfling team, maybe add 2 further halflings to fill the team up to the max. As for the colours, I can see a proper green and yellow, like the classic Greenfield Grass Huggers team, but with a more funny name. Maybe something around the Mootland Cocky Roosters.
What were your experiences with the Made-to-Order service so far? Did you use the chance to get your hands on some classics or is there something that you're still waiting for? If they re-release the old goblins - what I don't expect, as the plastics are around - I most likely will get them as well. Already have the goblin star players and big guys for my orcs, so it would be an easy catch.
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