We’d like to thank Forgeworld for providing us with a preview copy of these Star Players for review purposes.
Dear reader, you may not know this, but I’m just a little guy. I am also historically terrible at sports, having been thrown off at least one team in my brief career. In both of these ways, I relate deeply with halflings in Blood Bowl. When the classic character Puggy Baconbreath was to make his return with a new character, Cindy Piewhistle, I jumped at the chance to review these models for Goonhammer.
First Impressions
These casts are clean. I’m talking Modiphius levels of clean. I had no miscasts, and only a wee bit of mold slippage on Puggy’s shoulderpad, which left a seam that was easily shaved down. There were a few resin gates that took some deft knifework, especially on their toes and the steam from Cindy’s pie. I will not post closeup toe pics because none of y’all pay enough on Patreon for that privilege.
Assembly
I built these two models in about half an hour during a meeting where I probably should have been paying more attention. These models have a chunky aesthetic that lends itself to large, obvious connection points. There’s a little ambiguity as to which direction the hands fit, but once you fiddle with them a little you’ll probably find it without much issue. I had to look to the studio images to figure which side Cindy’s hat should be sitting on, but aside from that you really don’t even need instructions to build these models. There was a slight gap between Cindy’s hat brim and her forehead that needed filling in, but I was able to do the dirtbag move of just filling it in with thick paint from the pot.
Painting
I painted a Halfling team at the start of 2021, The Margaritaville Manglers. I foolishly didn’t record how I painted them, but with a scheme that was somewhat loosey-goosey, getting close enough wasn’t going to be hard. The details on these models are large and cartoonish, which makes picking them out especially easy. They also lend themselves to bright, saturated colors, which I went for with mine. I knocked them out over a few leisurely afternoons and evenings, and found them to be an enjoyable experience.
The only real challenge here was painting the foodstuff carried by the two players. Getting into the folds of the sandwich isn’t that hard, but figuring out how to paint all that crust fairly convincingly involved looking at a lot of reference pictures of subs and pies, and that made me very hungry. I think that means I can have pie for lunch and write it off as a business expense, but I am not a Business Genius so that might not be how it works.
On the Pitch
As someone who plays more Blitz Bowl than Blood Bowl, I thought to ask my Badcast cohost, hetero life partner, and veteran Blood Bowl coach Dan about what these two bring to the tabletop:
Dan: Cindy Piewhistle is a fucking war criminal. When they put Bomber Dribblesnot (the other Bombardier Star Player) at 50k, the competitive community quickly realized that he was an enormous problem, and GW smartly tagged him with the “Mega-Star” tag for their Tournament Guide. And then, they release another 50k Bombardier but this time, she can throw two bombs in a turn once per game! And on top of that, her rules were out by the time they created the Mega-Star tag, and they didn’t include her as a Mega-Star, even though her presence might very well destabilize competitive events again. TL:DR – she’s super good!
Puggy Baconbreath is a solid pickup for a halfling team. With Block, Dodge, and Nerves of Steel, he’s excellent at grabbing that last-second hand-off for a win or tie. At 120k and AV7+, he’s probably not worth it for any other Old World Classic teams, but he might see some traction with ‘Flings.
Final Thoughts, Parting Shots, and What Have You
These models are a characterful pair of weirdos that even a relative newcomer will have a good time building and painting. I had the thought while I was painting them that they remind me a little of some of the chibi miniatures out there, with their big chunky details and exaggerated expressions. It’s a cartoony aesthetic that you don’t see much of in Warhammer, even in the sillier world of Blood Bowl. By Dan’s reckoning, these are a worthwhile pair of Star Players for any Halfling team, so coaches should feel confident that they’ll actually use this pair of extremely characterful models.
If you have any suggestions, questions, or feedback, feel free to drop a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.
