In my last couple of posts I have gone over most of the latest Blood Bowl releases from Games Workshop. Today, we get a look at the last of those releases. The day before the Dwarf team, the Dwarf dice, and the Skaven and Dwarf team were released, Forge World released the first official Star Player for the new edition of Blood Bowl. The Mighty Zug! I saw all the pre-release images of the mini and I really liked what I saw. You might remember that I had previously ordered the Halfling and Goblin Referees pack from Forge World and it took more than a little while for me to actually receive the minis. I hoped that this order would be different, and luckily for me, it was!

While my first ever order from Forge World ended up taking well over a month to arrive in the mailbox, my second order took exactly one week. Pretty impressive for standard shipping from England. I really was not expecting Zug for another week or so, but when I checked the mailbox today, I started jumping up and down like a little kid when I saw the box with the UK Customs label attached.

Now that is just a beautiful sight! Even though I am not ready to paint him yet, I figured since I had my Zug in hand I should go ahead and put him together and show him off. I also thought that I might take this opportunity to assemble the Halfling and Goblin referees as well. Why not?!

Full disclosure. I have never actually owned Forge World resin minis before, so this was a little bit of a new experience for me. I knew of their reputation for really nice resin minis, but since I have never played Warhammer or 40K, there was no real need for me to own any of their minis before. I was really excited to open the packages and get started. Since Zug is the newest release, I started with him, and broke out the hobby knife to start cutting away the packaging.

Closeup of the front of the package.

Closeup of the back of the package.

I wanted to take just a minute to go over all the contents of the package.

You get two 32mm bases. One slotted base with a hole for the new standard Blood Bowl footballs, and one with no slot or hole. I do not really see any particular reason to use the slotted base for Zug, but you have the option if you want it.

What I thought was just a card in the packaging actually turned out to be a booklet. The front has a nice picture of the mini painted WAY better than I will ever be able to manage. What could be on the inside of the booklet?

Fluff! That is what is inside of the booklet! Good stuff.

The back of the booklet shows assembly instructions. Fairly straightforward and clear instructions.

Last but not least is the actual pieces of the mini. Here is the second option you get with this mini. Forge World gave us two left hands to choose from. One carrying a ball, and one without. I have read a lot of people complaining about how many of the new minis are sculpted with footballs in their hands. It does not really bother me either way, honestly. I do like that their are two different hands to choose from, but I would not have been bent out of shape if there had only been one.

The pieces snipped off the sprue (…is that the right term for resin minis like these? As I have no previous experience with Forge World resin, I have no idea.) fairly easily. The molds are very sharp, and only a few mold lines had to be filed off. Filing the resin was pretty much a breeze as well. I got all of the pieces separated, filed, and cleaned.

I dry fitted all of the parts to make sure there were no issues, and was pleasantly surprised to see that everything went together near perfectly. The only tricky piece (and I had a little advanced warning from a friend) was the towel, or cloth, or whatever the heck it is one the lower right of the picture that attaches to Zug’s left hip. The attachment point is pretty thin and a little odd. I was able to glue it, but as I type this, I am thinking I might need to break it off and pin it back in place. I am not one hundred percent sure that I is going to stay permanently. Anyway, after assembly, this is what I had.

I think that is a really good looking mini, personally. Great pose, great sculpt, great cast. I really could not be happier with this mini. It was a little on the pricey side, but I think it is worth it.

How about the scale, you ask? Well, how about we do a size comparison picture?

I do not actually have a 3rd edition Zug, but here is the new Zug next to a 3rd edition Griff Oberwald (AKA Chickenhead!) and a 5th edition “unreleased” Zug. The photo is not great, but the new Zug’s head is only slightly higher than the 5th edition Zug. He is also in a more dynamic pose so I would not really say that he is taller than the 5th edition Zug. He is slightly wider though, which appears to be a trend with the new minis.

Here is a direct side by side picture of the two Zug minis I have. You can probably see what I am talking about with the new Zug being wider, or thicker than the 5th edition Zug. In all fairness, my memory of the 3rd edition Zug is wider than the the 5th edition version.

Now that Zug was assembled, it was time to dive into the referees! I forgot to take individual pictures of the referees packaging, so here are a couple of front and back pics of the referee packs that I posted from a previous blog entry.

I had hoped that the referee pack would be like Zug and have a booklet inside, but this one actually ended up being just a card this time.

Both of these minis are single piece minis so there was no assembly, just trimming and cleaning, and they are ready to be glued on to the bases. Now it has been said before, but it bares repeating that these minis are BIG. The reasoning is apparently that they are sideline minis, not on the board minis, so their scale was considerably exaggerated. I cannot really say that I agree with that logic, but they did not ask my opinion before producing the minis, so…… Just how big are the minis?

This big. Zug is a BIG human, and these minis are not much shorter than he is. How about another picture to put it into perspective…

Here they are next to a 3rd edition Halfling and Goblin. That is a massive jump in scale. The sculpts are good though, and since they will not actually be on the pitch with player minis, I will not complain too much. At least we are getting more minis for the game. There was also some optional ref rules for Blood Bowl printed in the January 2017 issue of White Dwarf magazine, so be sure to check that out if you are interested.

Well, it is almost eleven PM here and I am tired, so that is all for tonight. Hope you enjoyed it! Until next time………

*********************UPDATE*********************

I was asked for another size comparison shot with 3rd edition linemen, so here goes. I tried to get the camera as level as possible to make the comparison as accurate as I could.

For being the Mighty Zug, I do not think his size difference is completely unreasonable here. He is noticeably larger, but his fluff insert does peg him at seven feet, two inches tall. With that in mind, I would say he looks about right next to these 3rd edition minis.

Now here is where the scale just goes out the window… The Halfling and Goblin minis are only a smidgen shorter than the Human linemen, and are actually a little bulkier. Again, I know there reasoning behind making these minis so large. I simply happen to disagree with that logic and the associated scale choice.

Here is one final scale picture… just because. I wanted to show Zug next to one final known variable, a 3rd edition Morg ‘N’ Thorg. Height wise, the new Zug is not much shorter, but he is pretty considerably less bulky. If they were on the pitch at the same time, I do not believe that anyone would have a hard time determining which mini is the Human Star Player and which one is the Ogre.

As always, comments and criticisms are welcome.