After a brief detour into the lands of the faerie, Blood Bowl’s latest team release returns again to the hitherto unreleased historical races known as the Teams Of Legend. This time we venture into the infamous Dark Lands, to a race that has had a long, but inconsistent history in the realms of Warhammer hobby, the Chaos Dwarfs! Thanks to Games Workshop for providing us with a copy of these rules for review purposes.
The Chaos Dwarf Spike! Magazine is, as always, packed with both new rules and plenty of lore to flesh out the team. For those that aren’t familiar with the Chaos Dwarfs, they are of course the evil cousins of everyone’s favourite diminutive mountain miners, and inhabit the volcanic wasteland known as the Dark Lands. From the capital city of Zharr-Nagrund, the Sorcerors of the Chaos Dwarfs rule an empire dedicated to the worship of the bull-like Chaos god Hashut, in which vile sorcery and explosive industry go hand-in-hand. Their realm is also supported by a huge undercaste of Hobgoblin slaves, and all of these disparate elements are reflected in their unique Blood Bowl roster.
The Roster
As mentioned, the Chaos Dwarf roster has been in the game for a long time now; a Tier 1 team that has always been one of the tougher and nastier bashers in the game. With this update they have had one of the most radical makeovers of all the re-released teams, with two brand new positionals and fundamental changes to their core positional, the Chaos Dwarf Blocker.
Chaos Dwarf Blocker
For the majority of this team’s history, this is the positional that has really defined the team and leant much of its strength and reliability. Effectively a clone of the Dwarf Blocker with additional Mutation access, this was a piece that provided huge defensive resilience as well as strong hitting and development potential.
The new Blocker still shares a statline with its untainted kin, but has had a huge change by losing the Tackle skill and gaining the (reworked) Iron Hard Skin. Furthermore, Chaos Dwarf teams can only take four of these positionals now, down from six.
Iron Hard Skin has had a very nice glowup, protecting the player from all forms of Armour modification, including the likes of Mighty Blow, Claws, and even Foul assists. This will definitely help keep Blockers on the field even longer than they already would thanks to Thick Skull.
Sadly, Tackle is one of the best skills in the game, causing headaches for all manner of Dodge-based teams, from Amazons to Stunties, as well as a variety of other squishy players who use the skill; losing it is unequivocally a major blow.
Chaos Dwarf Flamesmith
Replacing the two Blockers is the first of the new positionals, the Flamesmith. These Dwarfs bring a totally unique set of skills, the foremost being their unique Trait Breathe Fire. This is a little bit complicated, but it functions a bit like the Troll’s Projectile Vomit, with the Flamesmith using it instead of making a block against an adjacent opponent. Unlike the Vomit, this trait does not target armour, but it does have a 50/50 chance of placing prone or knocking the opponent over. On a 1, it knocks the Flamesmith over, causing a turnover. This trait is uniquely effective against certain pieces, such as blodgers, and ball carriers, that are either hard to knock over, or against whom armor-breaking is less important than just getting on the floor. Though it is easy to imagine circumstances in which this could be useful, even game-changing, it is also going to require the planets to align to get that value from it. The turnover risk alone is a big drawback.
Anyway, we are not done there, because the Flamesmith also has a few other skills: Thick Skull, like its dwarven comrades, Disturbing Presence, and Brawler. Yes, sadly the Flamesmith has neither Tackle nor Block. It does have one other variation of note, possessing MA5 rather than 4, but the sum of the above also sees it increase in cost to 80K. Overall I’m not high on this piece. It trades the reliability of a blocker for some probably unneeded mobility and some niche and questionable abilities.
Hobgoblins
Some things never change, and Hobgoblins are just as cheap and crap as they have been for the last twenty years. That is probably a good thing, because they can fill a variety of roles in the team depending on need. Ball carriers, foulers, LOS fodder, screeners and chaff, are all great uses for Hobgobs, and they can put almost any skills to good use. But what’s that you say, they are capable of so much more? Ok, how about…
Hobgoblin Sneaky Stabba
The second brand new positional for the Chaos Dwarfs is the Stabba, and true to its name this Hobgob has the Stab trait. In fact the Stabba is basically a budget assassin, also packing Shadowing. Unfortunately this is on top of a completely normal Hobgoblin statline, which means that Shadowing will be all but useless, and there’s little to prevent the Stabba being blasted off the pitch as soon as it fails to remove whatever it stabs. At 70k, this seems overpriced considering its fragility and inability to contribute beyond its gimmick.
Bull Centaur Blitzer
Back to the good stuff, and one of the other best players on the old roster remains almost entirely unchanged. The Bull Centaur is one of the best positionals in the game, with a combination of speed, strength and versatility that is hard to match. Only let down by its 4+AG, it can still be worth the risk to try and get it the ball, as it can be so hard to stop when it does. Otherwise, this remains one of the best blitzing pieces on the team, and one of the most important players period.
Bull Centaurs have had one tweak: they now have access to Mutations as a Secondary skill. This is a nice little boost, even though Bull Centaurs tend to have some fundamental priority skills they want to chase, as there are definitely lots of potentially spicy mutation options like Claws, Horns, Extra Arms, and the newly-boosted Iron Hard Skin.
Minotaur
Finally, the Big Guy on the roster, the Minotaur, returns with just one change: its negatrait has been updated to Unchanneled Fury from Animal Savagery, bringing it into line with the Minotaurs on the Chaos Chosen and Renegade rosters. Some people prefer the guaranteed activation that Animal Savagery allows, while some prefer that it doesn’t kill its own team-mates, so we’ll call this a wash. The Minotaur is probably more important to the team than ever now, given that the roster has lost some hitting power, but as always, it remains fragile for a Big Guy, and needs careful management.
Overall Roster Thoughts
In a straight comparison with the old roster, this is weaker. I think that’s undeniable when you lose two instances of Block and six of Tackle, which did so much work for the team by enhancing both its bash and control capabilities. Without that historical context, this roster still has a lot going for it, but the complexity of getting the best out of the team has risen and its ceiling seems lower. I think both the Stabba and Flamesmith are overpriced by being burdened with poor skills that discourage taking what could have been useful Block-alternatives. GW still lists this team as Tier 1, but I think there’s a strong argument that they look more like a Tier 2 team now.
Star Players
Spike! brings us three new Star Players to go along with the Chaos Dwarfs, and all three are returning names of yesteryear.
ZZharg Madeye
Zzharg is (and has always been) a big bundle of weirdness; a ST4 Chaos Dwarf with a blunderbuss that gives him a bunch of passing and ball-handling skills (including the very interesting Nerves Of Steel and Sure Hands combo), but also the Secret Weapon trait. This updated version comes with a wild special rule, ‘Then I Started Blasting’ which lets Zzharg make a kind of Stab attempt at 3 square range once per half. On a 3+ this hits the intended target, on a 1, Zzharg himself, and on a 2, a player of the opposing coach’s choice!
Zzharg used to be a lot cheaper than his new 130K price, and was often worth throwing some money at just to get a ST4 blocker for a drive. His price now puts him on the edge of usability for a piece that is lost to Sending-Off easily, but if you can control the game and field him for a whole half he can be very good value.
Rashnak Backstabber
Two Stabbas wasn’t enough? Well have we got a treat for you, there’s another stabber on the block and this one is even nastier. Rashnak has a very similar statline to the rostered Stabbas, but has one extra square of MA (which means his Shadowing skill might actually do something). He also has Sidestep and Sneaky Git, which gives him a lot more potential to contribute turn on turn. Rashnak’s special ability is Toxin Connoisseur, which lets him add 1 to the injury roll, once per game, if his Stab breaks armour; pretty decent, if not earth-shattering. Rashank weighs in at 130k, which is not too bad, but he has the same issues with fragility as the Stabbas. Older versions of this star were more expensive, but came with Dodge, which is a big deal for longevity and versatility. I think he’s overpriced still for what he does, but it does mean you could potentially have three Stab players on the pitch, which might be a laugh.
H’Thark The Unstoppable
As Bull Centaurs are to the Chaos Dwarf Roster, so is H’Thark to their stars. A ST6 monster with huge movement range and lots of useful skills, H’Thark has a huge threat range and the ability to drop anything he can reach. His Special Ability Unstoppable Momentum can be used to reroll one block dice any time that H’Thark blitzes, which is both extremely powerful to fish for Pows, and a fantastic safety net for dodging the dreaded double skulls. At 300k H’Thark is in the high tier of star costs but will absolutely give suitable bang for buck.
Builds For League And Tournament Play
With their various positional changes, Chaos Dwarf coaches will have to make some tough choices about starting rosters. Though they don’t come in the box, I would not personally play Chaos Dwarfs without the Bull Centaurs, as they are so versatile and powerful. To that end here’s a starting league build that leans into them:
1000TV Starting League Build
- Bull Centaur x 2
- Chaos Dwarf Blocker x 4
- Flamesmith x 1
- Hobgoblin x 4
- Team Re-Roll x 3
This comes to 990TV, giving you 10 to spend on Dedicated Fans or save. An alternative is to drop the Flamesmith for two more Hobgoblins; this will give you twelve players total to help deal with attrition.
This build can easily be upgraded for 1150TV Tournament play by adding the Minotaur.
Final Thoughts
It’s hard to comment on anything gameplay-wise to do with this team without it sounding negative in comparison with what we had before. But, looking at it from a new perspective, the world of Blood Bowl as it is starting to look through the newly-released teams and some of the trends we are seeing, this is a very decent team. Certainly more than ever it captures the unique flavour of the Chaos Dwarf realms, and as usual, GW have done a lovely job on the minis (special mention for the Stars, which are really great) and all of the accessories; I’m sure coaches will have a lot of fun with some of the new and unique capabilities of this team, and it will be interesting to see how its changes impact the general meta.
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