3A Ashley Wood Adventure Kartel - Acolyte Zombs

Ashley Wood called these the Acolyte Zombs and it was a 1st Jan 2011 New Year's Day drop (23:59 Singapore time on 31st Dec 2010 to be very exact) that wasn't on the countdown clock at ThreeA official blog. Only if you visited the ThreeA forum that you got to know this "secret" drop that is meant to celebrate the cross over from 2010 to 2011, a brand new year. The 4 Pack, titled "Monty pack" were made available to order on top of the singles. The jewel of the 4 pack - that you don't get to have buying singles - is the Albino Zomb which has a Ver 1.0 Zomb sculpt. Nothing more was revealed at that point of time but being Albino, it is sort of a no brainer that the main color of it will be white. Some speculate it is a DIY zomb, some just thought it has whitish skin like a ... albino. It will be another 5 months plus before everything is made known. The other 3 in the 4 Monty pack were made up of a yellow, orange and black boiler suited Zombs with Ver 2.0 sculpt. The same sculpt that the Ankou + Zomb twin pack zomb has and only the 2nd time this headsculpt is released. You also get the same 3 colorway zomb if you purchase the singles but you buy the color you wanted, not blind box. Last but not least, singles cost US$80 and the Monty pack cost US$280. Monty pack came in a slip sleeve, as shown above, with 4 individual box slotted into it. So we got 4 magnificent posters (too bad they were folded), 4 mini catalogs and 4 nice box. I wonder what the "P" in place of the usual AK numbering meant?

This is the last set I got (exclude 3AA 2011 Membership pack) paying full, non 3AA price. A milestone in my 3A collection. 

Will start off this huge entry with my favorite of the 4.

NUMBER 1 : ALBINO ZOMB (VER 1.0)

Who would have thought this ol' jewel of the 4 pack - Albino Zomb - can caused so much controversy and "emo". So this Albino was actually from Africa? Big debate in the ThreeA forum, the first time I witness die hard 3A supporters goes up in arms about this and understandably so. Everyone expected a pale faced Zomb that fit the "Albino" tag but it was not meant to be. It prompted Ash himself to personally does some investigation and here are some except from the man's response, on June 13, to the Legions regarding this :

"I cant judge a run of toys from one photo, il need to see more, mine look fine, albino should be white though, thats a mistake."

"shit happens, but I know my zombs are great, taken from the same stock as yours. The albino is fuck up, but thats how it goes."

"he was supposed to light grey skinned the albino its darker, we are figuring out a plan."


"well I always say, any dick can handle success, but a real man can handle fuck ups...

I looked through a zomb batch, too many with not on point coloring and on that note, we are gonna remake and ship them all again, singles and 4 packs. so you score some free figs, not bad when you look at it like that ! they will be shipped in plain boxes etc so dont go selling now on ebay if you want the AK boxes

spread the word,"

"anyone ever says 3A is banking, well show them this !

onwards to the  stars.!"

What can I say, the big boss man has outdone himself once again. Big KUDOS to Ashley Wood. Hot Toys (HT) and other big boys in the industry don't even come close to such gesture. I always says HT sucks that we, the consumer, their paymaster, need to pay shipment of a faulty item back to HT for re-verification. It is super crap. They gave lousy product, they bear all the cost for re-verification. Not us. Oh well, I digress...

Then, moments later, something interesting appeared at Bambalandstore :

Now if this isn't emo, I don't know what is. Ash had made clear that it wasn't his doing. Obviously someone else is out to be mischievous. The good part is if you are 3AA, you got your usual 0.85% discount which amounted to about $1499.85 LOL!!!

Back to the Zombs. Although Albino Zomb isn't exactly albinolly white/pale, but this is Adventure Kartel we are talking about where real is not real, not real is real. Using real life stereotype or samples as comparison is not quite relevant..I still like it more than the other 3. So he goes into the "Number 1" position. Yay!

NUMBER 2 : YELLOW SUITED ACOLYTE ZOMB (VER2.0)

This is the strangest of all drops I experience. Something not shown in the original ordering drop day turns out to be my favorite. The yellow one which is my least desired of the lot turned out better than expected. Though the weathering on the suit looked half heartedly done (read : half fucked standard), the deeper yellow makes up for it. Zomb(ies) are usually associated to be dark emo-tionless "creature". But the yellow suit gave it a different dimension, in a good way, that works perfectly for me. I would think the replacement set would be so much more awesome than this one. Only time will tell.

NUMBER 3 : ORANGE SUITED ACOLYTE ZOMB (VER 2.0)

I would have like this more if the orange of the suit is much darker but stronger, like the tone from the NCLS Ankou. But alas! The suit here looked dull orange. Like those old monk's robe's color. You may argue Zombs are suppose to have dull-tattered clothing. But again, this is Adventure Kartel. I don't want to use the word "disappointment" but this one is not far from it. Again, I am looking forward to the replacement unit.

NUMBER 4 : BLACK SUITED ACOLYTE ZOMB (VER 2.0)

Just 1 picture for this least desired of the 4. Ironically, it was my first choice when I was still deciding if I should go for the 4 pack or just buy the singles. Again the weathering on the suit were disappointing. Yes! a big DISAPPOINTING verdict for this one. Comparing both Terence Zomb (Ver 1.0) and Blind Oracle Zomb (Ver 4.0), this one is no where near those standards of the 2 mentioned. So I have nothing much to write about this and no interest to take more picts of it. Here is putting all my hope in the replacement unit :)

CONCLUSION

A commendable thing I have to point out for these 4 boxes is that each of them come with additional hand pegs. A suggestion I put through earlier on in the forum but was replied by Gimbat that 3A does quality product and by putting extra pegs in the box suggest that they are too unsure about their own quality. A point I accepted from that angle of thoughts, but it is also a fact that folks are writing back to Candy (the amazing super duper client service superwoman from ThreeA) left right center requesting for pegs due to breakage of product upon receiving. So I suggested that I wouldn't mind paying a couple of dollars more for the pegs to be included into the box. Whether it is via my suggestion (I doubt so) that ThreeA now include the pegs into the box, it isn't important. Important is, they have up their ante to another level by doing this little gesture. And no additional charge :D
About the figures, nothing much to add to the notes for each of the colorway. Overall I would give a 2.6/5 for them. Just good enough but it should be better.