Yesterday Games Workshop released the newest items in the Blood Bowl line, and of course I bought them, because of course I did… I had them pre-ordered through my FLGS and as luck would have it, there was also a Blood Bowl tournament yesterday at my FLGS. So I got to kill two birds with one stone and play at ROT Cup AND pick up the new Blood Bowl goodies all in one day.

This post is going to be REALLY pic heavy, so I apologize in advance…

I am going to start with the Team Titans Pack of Special Play Cards. The newest deck includes twenty-six cards split between two categories. You get sixteen Benefits of Training cards and ten Dirty Tricks cards.

I know a lot of people do not like the Special Play Cards because they get all worried about the “balance” of the game. To those people I say, balance shmalance! Special Play Cards are FUN! Stop taking the game so seriously and have a little fun. If you want to keep things serious, there are tons of tournaments to go to and none of them allow the cards. For friendly games, lighten up a bit… but that is just my opinion.

Here are a few examples of the Benefits of Team Training cards. Standing Offence allows you to trade your Pass and Blitz Actions at the beginning of your turn for every player on your team gaining the Mighty Blow skill for that turn. Quick Flick allows you to gain an extra Quick Pass (only!) for a turn in addition to your standard Pass action. Finally, Quick Save allows you to get one last Action in with any player who hasn’t yet moved if you suffer a Turnover during your turn.

Likewise, here are a couple of the Dirty Tricks cards. Hidden Blade played at the beginning of you turn gives a single player of your choice the Dirty Player and Stab skills for that turn, while Tripping Player played at the beginning of your opponent’s turn causes an opposing player to go Prone (though no Armor Roll is needed). This can be a nasty trick if that player has just enough MA to make a turn 8 or 16 TD!

Anyway, those are the cards that come in the new pack. I hope to use them in my games soon.

Now for the new Troll.

As soon as the first images of this Troll hit the interwebs a little more than a week ago, the hate started to pour in. I have to be honest, I kind of got a kick out of gamers losing their collective minds over this guy. I do understand some of the frustrations, though. The angle that Games Workshop chose to photograph this mini just boggles the mind, as half of his face is covered by one of his hands. I would also prefer a Troll that was modeled without a Goblin in his hand. And finally, of course, we have another Big Guy/Star Player balanced on one foot. Despite those things, I really do not feel like the the Troll deserved a lot of the unbridled hate it received. One direct quote is that the Troll was “ugly as f**k.” Yes, it is a goofy pose, but UAF? Really?

Anyway, time to crack this baby open. The packaging is pretty much identical to the Ogre box.

The first thing that I thought when I looked at the back of the box was, “Holy crap… that is a LOT of pieces for one model.” Just in case the numbers are not clear in the picture, this mini has NINETEEN pieces. You read that right… Nineteen pieces for a single mini. This miniature has more pieces than I have ever had to assemble for one model, by far. Maybe that is why the Troll costs so much more than the Ogre.

Same protective packing as the Ogre inside the box, which is nice. Inside the box there are two sprues and one 32mm slotted base.

The first of the two sprues inside the box.

The second sprue. Man, that really is a LOT of pieces.

The obligatory included base.

Time to begin putting this bad boy together…

The first piece is actually the back of the Troll.

I thought the second piece was kind of interesting. It is actually the spiked backbone of the Troll. I assume that it was made a separate piece for casting reasons.

The two pieces went together relatively easily and a small amount of liquid green stuff will make the seam unnoticeable. It worth noting that this mini will require quite a bit of green stuff to hid all the seams. I guess that is what happens when a model has nineteen pieces… I digress.

The next piece was the first of a few pieces that was almost impossible to know how to assemble from the instructions on the box. The way I eventually figured it out was actually by going to the Games Workshop page for the Troll and checking out the 360 degree view of the mini. It was also the first of a few pieces that are VERY small. Those of us without small, nimble fingers may find pieces like this a bit of a pain in the ass…

Finally got the pieces figured out and glued to the mini. Did I mention the need for copious amounts of green stuff?

The front of the body is up next.

The two halves of the body went together easily.

I included this picture because my four year old son saw me taking pictures of the mini and wanted me to take a picture of his finger pointing to the mini. He is now internet famous…

Here is the second piece that I found to be troublesome. It is attached to the sprue at four points and it is VERY thin, and I snapped one side as I was trying to trim it and get it ready for gluing. It is simply a spiked ankle band, so I am really not sure why it needed to be a separate piece, but it is.

It took a minute for my gorilla hands to get this piece lined up properly, but I managed it somehow.

Troll foot… no problem, right? Well, a little more than you might think. Like the spiked band before it, the foot took me a minute or two to figure out how to line it up properly. It was not difficult enough to call it hard, but it was enough to call irritating.

With the foot attached, it is time to put the mini on a base. There is a small tab on the bottom of the foot, so it makes sense to use the slotted base, and not switch it out with a standard base.

Top half of the second leg along with some extra detail. I have to admit that the use of a Human team helmet for a knee pad is probably my favorite detail of this mini. I LOVED that touch.

The leg again after being attached.

The left foot is actually in two separate pieces. At least the pieces are big enough to not be difficult.

If you are wondering what that is on the foot, it is one of those spring loaded, metal jawed animal traps. This is one of those details that I think is slightly amusing, but also unnecessary. I guess it kind of fits the kind of thing you would expect a Really Stupid Troll to get into, but when I see it, all I can think of is how much extra time that additional, unnecessary detail is going to add to the painting process. Maybe that is just me, though.

The foot attached to the leg easily, but it also leave more seams that will need to be addressed.

This is the chest “armor” and I have to admit that I chuckled a little bit when I first saw it in the original images. This absolutely fits with what I would expect a Troll to come up with for armor.

I was a little worried at first that this piece would make accessing torso details difficult and would need to be painted separately, but luckily that turned out not to be the case. When I dry fitted the piece, I saw that torso access was not really restricted by this piece at all.

The first of two pieces for the right arm.

It took me a second to figure out the orientation for attaching the arm, but I eventually got it sorted out.

A mug only a mother Troll could love? I do not think it has as much personality as the 3rd edition Ripper Bolgrot Troll, but I think it is pretty decent.

It is starting to look like something instead of a blog of gray plastic.

Not only do feet come in multiple pieces on this mini, but apparently hands do as well…

The other half of the hand with an arm attached.

And now the two become one! Hey look… another seam to fix.

So, this arm I had to attach using poster tack. It will have to be painted separately and attached as one of the final steps of the mini. If you are wondering, yes… his hand really is THAT close to his face. This is the one thing on this mini that I just do not get. I understand the pose and that it is supposed to be a very dynamic representation of the Troll in the middle of a Throw Team-Mate pass action, but why make such a detailed face on a mini, and then turn around and completely cover it up by putting the hand of the mini directly in front of it? There is literally a millimeter or two of clearance between the hand and the face. Moving on…

Hey! A great big shoulder pad.

Again, I had to use a little poster tack to attach the shoulder pad as painting around it would end up being really challenging. Making minis that require pieces to be painted, and THEN assembled seems to be the way of things these days, especially with Games Workshop, but that does not mean that I have to like it.

Look… a Goblin! If Games Workshop does not release a second Troll sculpt for the Goblin team (which I do not expect them to do), then I hope to be able to do a hand swap and have the second Troll with just a closed fist. I am not sure how that will affect the already goofy pose, but I do not want both Trolls to look identical when I get around to assembling another for the Goblins.

The hand attached with no issues.

Another tiny piece that was little bit frustrating to figure out. It will also need to be painted separately and then attached.

It was a little trying, but I got it attached in presumably the correct orientation.

Man, that Goblin has quite a honker on him. I bet he got teased a lot in Goblin elementary school. Children can be cruel after all…

No issues attaching the head.

With as many people that have gotten bent out of shape with the number of players sculpted holding a football, I have to admit that I giggled a little when I saw that not only was the Troll holding a Goblin player, and that the Goblin was actually holding the ball. I mean, why else would you be tossing a Goblin? I still giggled. Do not judge me.

Since the ball is covering half of the Goblin’s body, we will need to add this mini to the list of pieces that will need to be painted separately and assembled after painting.

And with the nineteenth (wow… nineteen) piece attached, we can stick a fork in this mini. Here are a few pics of the completed model from different angles.

Now for my favorite game of, “How big is it?” The short answer is BIG. Here are a few size comparison pictures for reference.

Here is the Troll standing right next to the Ogre. As you can see, the Troll is quite a bit bigger than the Ogre. You are DEFINITELY going to need some Prone and Stunned counters for this guy as there really is not any way that he will lay down on the pitch well with any other minis in close proximity.

Here is the new Troll next to a 3rd edition Ripper Bolgrot and a 3rd edition Human lineman. I have to admit being a little bit surprised that the new Troll is not THAT much bigger than Ripper. I had forgotten how tall Ripper was apparently. I will say that he is a little less heroically proportioned and more realistically proportioned, which admittedly is kind of hard to say with a straight face considering we are talking about Trolls. The head is smaller, and he is much thicker around the midsection. Compared to the 3rd edition lineman, he is about twice as tall.

Here are a few final thoughts on the mini. While the tone of this post may sound a little negative towards the new Troll, for the most part I like the mini. If I did not, I would not have bought it. It does have a few things that annoy me a little, but not every mini can be as nice as the new Griff Oberwald. A couple of tiny pieces, unclear instructions (I had to refer to the 360 degree view online three different times during assembly), and a mind boggling hand that completely covers half of the Troll’s face are my only real gripes about the mini. Overall, I think it is a good mini, and worthy of adding to the collection.

On a different, but related topic… you may have heard about the Games Workshop Made to Order program. If you have not, it is essentially a new service that they recently started where they put out of print minis up for order on their website for a short period of time then cast just enough for those orders to be filled. Once all casting is complete. then the minis go out of print again. Well, today Games Workshop made a LOT of Blood Bowl fans happy by posting on Facebook that for one week only, out of print Blood Bowl minis will be available through the Made to Order program. Below is the image that they released.

According to the image above, the minis will be available for order starting on April 8th. I am trying to not get my hopes up as to how much of the old product lines will be available, but the image does say, “Classic TEAMS return for one week only.” I have most of the old 3rd edition minis that I want already, but if they make the entire hard to find Chaos Dwarf team available to order, I will not be able to throw my money at them fast enough. No other details have been released that I have seen, but we only have to wait six more days before we see what all minis will be available.

The final thing to share is a little goody I picked up at the tournament yesterday. The store owner had lots of Blitzmania swag to give away, so I managed to get my fourth set of Blitzmania cards as well as a small promo poster.

The wife stopped by a hobby store while running errands to pick up a frame for me, and I now I have one more cool thing to add to my Wall o’ Blood Bowl!

With that, the two Benedryl pills I took are starting to kick my butt, so I am now going to sleep. Hope everyone enjoys the post!

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

The Warhammer Community webpage has just posted an update listing which Blood Bowl minis will be available for next week’s Made to Order program. The list is pretty small, which is what I expected, but luckily for me, the 3rd edition Chaos Dwarf team made the cut. The Chaos Dwarf team is the last of the 3rd edition teams that I want and do not have. I have a cobbled together team of 2nd, 3rd and indie minis, but I would much prefer the full 3rd edition team.

Going by the image, it unfortunately looks like I will need to purchase two sets in order to have a full compliment of six Chaos Dwarves, or go to eBay to fill those gaps. Hopefully some of these minis will also be available as singles, and not only as a whole team set. Given how expensive any minis from the Chaos Dwarf team tend to be on eBay, if I do not have the option to buy single minis, I will probably buy two teams, then sell the extras on eBay to help offset the cost.