Quite a bit of info for the first preview. It looks like quite a nerf. They lose tackle on the blockers, and gain a slew of pretty weak skills in return. I've always been arguing for ditching mass tackle on dwarfs and chorfs, but I would have wanted it replaced with arm bar on blockers and then reintroduced on another 0-2 positional. Now they just don't seem to have any tools to stop Amazons and Lizardmen walking past.
The firebreathers are almost certain to be worse blockers. Firebreathing looks pretty bad, and to pay for it I guess we'll be trading in either the block skill (making them effectively a blocker that starts at level -1), or a higher price (paying extra for nothing). Rerolls are 70k and we don't have sure hands, we're not looking to roll what are effectively 1-dice blocks. If the self-knockdown had been on a 0 (only a rosk against big guys), it would have been a nice safe defensive choice for a defensive team. As is, it's just a bad hybrid of tackle and dauntless; it hits blodgers (sort of) and big guys (sort of), but doesn't actually really inconvenience either. With no armour roll and no tackle, the wardancer is just going to get up and walk away. Trying it on a big guy is a 1/3 chance of either player going down, but only the chorf has to take an armour roll. A half-dice block with block would have been better.
All four blockers will be needing guard first skill, these guys will probably need block, mighty blow will have to wait. They'll be not-losing the brawling game and losing the ball-playing game hard.
The hobgoblin stabber is uh a guy. There's not much they can trade out from a hobgoblin statline, so I guess it's probably just 'do you want to pay 20k extra for two weak skills'. Not really. If stab/shadowing is what Chorfs end up resorting to to handle skinks and Zons, they're cooked. If the guy is like... S2 MA7 with Agility access at 40k, maybe they have something to think about. But as it stands it looks like two blockers got worse and there's a new meme option.
So, not looking great. Full rules aren't out, and with the right stats and skill access on the hobgoblin and a prompt errata for firebreathing they might have something new to do. But they're not going to be defending anything any more, the days of Chorfs being hard to score against looknto be over. I picked Chorfs for this year's league because I had a suspicion the team I had would be obsolete this year, so I'm happy to have had a go with them. If the creator I bought from make an expansion pack I'll probably get it for the sake of having a current team, but I don't have a lot of confidence in what's been revealed so far.
