Expanding into Farrow

It's a good start. Thornfall casters are in a weird spot where they are all better served in WWFF than thornfall proper. Carver, arkadius, and Helga want large battle groups and want the free points from warbeasts and the turn 1 speed boost. Midas really wants some of the gator support options like the cauldron and soul slave, and Sturm and Drang can work with quite a lot of stuff and hd ave more access to good models.

You can still make strong and fun lists with thornfall. Brigands are still as powerful as ever. Slaughterhousers, brigands, and valkyries hit really hard with any kind of damage boost. All of the pig warbeasts are respectable in their roles. Against well rounded lists thornfall is perfectly fine but it starts to struggle against caster/armies with strong control/denial and/or the ability to clear out a lot of infantry in one turn.

Sadly, the support is so much better in WWFF that even the infantry 'casters like Helga and Midas rarely take Thornfall instead. I still lean a bit towards running Midas in Thornfall, but that's probably just down to not owning Nyss. Helga really struggles to function without elements like the Soul Slave and Bone Shrine, so I certainly wouldn't consider her outside of WWFF.

The Gorax vs Battle Boar question is one decided by the match-ups you want to drop them into. Battle Boars are a bit better at killing infantry, but it's worth noting that with the theme granting Overtake a Gorax can replicate the output of a Battle Boar's first two Berserk attacks (a Battle Boar has to pay to charge and pay to gain Berserk and Overtake), so it isn't until you're in a position to reasonably kill 6+ infantry with your light Warbeast that the Battle Boar is the superior anti-infantry choice. And the Gorax has a much, much higher output against enemy heavies.

I believe one of my most recent battle reports added Rust to that equation to end with a Gorax getting to make an effective five Mat 9 P+S 20 attacks, including a charge attack. So a slightly higher and more accurate output than a Primal'd War Hog Trashed a Driller in three hits thanks to hot dice on top of that.

I guess that would depend on how competetive you are/your meta is. If your meta consists of high level players playing high level lists all the time then you might be a little disadvantaged. Thornfall isn't that far behind as far as themes go, I recall azahul had success with it until WWFF came out. It just has too many holes in its game plan and asks too few questions to be considered in a true competitive pairing. If you don't play at that level (let's be honest, most of us don't) thornfall is perfectly serviceable. Brigands are always a fun unit to use and when slaughterhousers actually make it to a target they will tear it apart on the charge. Valkyries have helped this theme too, so it will probably be fine when it gets more releases.

But until then:
I'd say that carver and arkadius should be played in WWFF. They usually wouldn't run brigands or slaughterhousers anyways.
That leaves Helga, Midas, and Sturm and Drang. All 3 of these can play thornfall all right.

Helga in thornfall is more combined arms than battle group. Defenders ward is a pretty good spell since it can make a unit if dug in brigands frustrating to remove, and is one of the few ways we can increase the survivability of slaughterhousers.

Midas will want to take a minimal bg (whether you are spamming razor boars, taking ranged lights, or a mix of both is up to you)and flood the board with farrow warrior models. Brigands, valks, and slaughterhousers all hit like a ton of bricks in melee with battle lust, the problem is getting them there.

Sturm and Drang are weird for pigs and offer short ranged control,some denial, and a large arm buff against ranged/magic attacks. Having tk helps counter other placement effects your opponent has. They don't have any damage buffs for your army so you'll need to plan around it in list building.
I haven't played Helga or Sturm and Drang in thornfall recently (I'm going to start trying Helga again soon) but a personal favorite Midas list I break out from time to time is
War Room Army

Minions - Midas

Theme: The Thornfall Alliance
3 / 3 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army


Midas - WB: +30
- Targ - PC: 4
- Gun Boar - PC: 9 (Battlegroup Points Used: 9)
- Gun Boar - PC: 9 (Battlegroup Points Used: 9)
- Splatter Boar - PC: 8 (Battlegroup Points Used: 8)
- Splatter Boar - PC: 8 (Battlegroup Points Used: 4)

Alten Ashley - PC: 0
Saxon Orrik - PC: 0
Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter - PC: 0
Swamp Gobber Chef - PC: 1
Swamp Gobber Chef - PC: 1

Farrow Brigands - Leader & 9 Grunts: 15
- Farrow Brigand Warlord - PC: 4
Farrow Brigands - Leader & 9 Grunts: 15
- Farrow Brigand Warlord - PC: 4
Farrow Valkyries - Leader & 2 Grunts: 8
Farrow Valkyries - Leader & 2 Grunts: 8
Farrow Slaughterhousers - Leader & 5 Grunts: 11


THEME: The Thornfall Alliance
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GENERATED : 04/10/2018 00:24:35
BUILD ID : 2061.18-02-21

It's a straight up gunline that your opponent doesn't want to be in melee with either. It plays well into a decent portion of the field but doesn't like incoporeal units or jack heavy protectorate because of passage. It also can struggle in to arm skews with a lot of gun resistant models (maelok) or a few lists with jack/beasts that can be at greater than 20 arm for more than 1 turn. I've considered dropping alten and a chef to make a warlord free and get a min unit of grinders for craft talisman, but in general I'm pretty content with this list.
TL;DR: Thornfall is ok in a game where people are looking for great or better. Thornfall armies tend to be rather straightforward (arkadius not withstanding) so require you to be good at the table. If you are willing to play into bad match ups there are plenty of learning opportunities here that will make you stronger as a player.

I regularly play Farrow infantry lists but just because (1) I own and love the models, (2) I refuse to play power lists all the time, (3) I like to give less experienced players a fair game.
In all honesty I can't even see a reason to name Brigands a good unit. They are mediocre at best. In my meta they do nothing. Either they dig in to not get shot to pieces (but then they are too slow to contribute to the game) or they are heavily jammed. I simply can't play them.

If I like to run Farrow rather competitively, I simply run beast heavy Arkadius or Carver. I love them both. It's the reason why I never started Rask super friends (I run Rask Posse Spam in Blindwater which is so much fun to play that it is my go-to-list right now. - sad farrows)

IMO Thornfall would be a good theme if it had the same structure as Irregulars in Mercs and with a better solo support (eg Orin Midwinter). I think that most Farrow warlocks can run a combined arms list pretty well, but Thornfall does not allow or support this playstyle.

My favorite use of brigands is in skorne DOA lol. Prey plus mortality is pretty good. Buy into another faction! (This post probably not sponsored by privateer press)