Foodhammer 2014

I’ve been super busy this year and haven’t had as much time to play Warhammer/Malifaux. This is a little sad, but I made my decision and I’m happy with my priorities. So when I noticed that Foodhammer Fantasy was on a Sunday this year, I made sure to put it into my schedule!

I’ve really enjoyed my Lizardmen, since adopting a Nicholas Klose attitude of “Warhammer Fantasy is a terribly written game, but it can be a ton of fun if you want it to be.” At OFCC this year, I took a Skink Priest+Beasts magic heavy list, that was fun to play but not terribly effective. For Foodhammer, I wanted to do something completely different, and I’m stoked to see that I finally have enough models to do that. As well, because Special Characters were allowed I was really happy to finally start and finish painting Chakax, which is such a badass model. My list consisted of a Slann+Loremaster High Magic, Chakax, 2 Level 1 Priests on Heavens, a Scar Vet on Cold One, 2 units of Skink Cohorts, 4 units of Skink Skirmishers and a Temple Guard Bunker. 50/50 Lords/Heroes helped, as I went over in Heroes because Chakax is a stunning 270 points.

 

 

Game 1, I randomly drew fellow CHOP! member, Patrick. Dan was apologetic about this because he tried to avoid club members playing each other, but since I haven’t played Fantasy against Patrick in ages this was great! Pat is one of my most favourite opponents, (except when he’s Soulblighting me to death in turn 3…) so this was a great start to the tournament!

Pat brought 5 cases for 5 armies, as he was playing Chaos Legions with a Lore of Undeath Wizard. Sounds like a lot of bookkeeping! He spent the entire game backing up and shooting and trying to summon things. I managed to stop him from summoning for most of the game, and he also managed to back up for most of it. This game ended in a draw, with me edging out tournament points by claiming 2 objectives against his 1.

All of the backing up and chaffing of my bunker started to annoy me at one point, but then I attitude adjusted — by bringing a deathstar bunker, this was exactly was I had invited. Nobody wants to get into combat with that thing. Our game ended at the end of turn 3 because of our slowness.

 

Game 2 I got Pip/Owen from CHOP! as well. Every time I play Pip, I wish I hadn’t. He knows this, I’ve known him for going on 15 years now and we have a lot of history. 🙂 He’s playing Wood Elves. I set up to try to take out a specific section of his army, and to only give him the bunker to shoot at effectively, since it would be hardest to get any points out of.

First and second turn I dominated with magic and positioning to take out his Wild Riders and Waywatchers. I wasn’t certain that I had enough points to win, and backing away didn’t seem like my style anyway, so I continued to go towards his center.

 

Towards the end, Pip managed to whittle down my bunker enough that he eventually did take out Chakax and my Slann and that’s so many points, enough to take it from a draw to a win for him.

I remember a spot at which I made a really dumb mistake. I was playing Loremaster High, and cast two spells in which turn that I’d planned to swap out. I rolled on Shadow and took Miasma, planning to put -1M on his center to prevent them from running away as easily. Stupidly, I rolled on Shadow a second time when I really wanted to start rolling on Life since he had brought my bunker down in size enough for me to worry. I feel that this decision lost me the game, although obviously magic is raaaaannndom.

Game 3 I played Dustin from the Hammered Heads and his Lizardmen. It was all but a mirror match. 🙂 I had more skinks and Chakax, he had a unit of Saurus.

 

I took the chance and charged his Saurus. If I won, I needed to pursue past his unit of Temple Guard, as the plan was definitely to avoid it so I could use my greater combat power more effectively. I chaffed his unit with a skink unit just in case it didn’t work out, which was great because while I did beat them, I only ran 4″!

This game was also a draw, but in Dustin’s favor with two objectives to my one.

 

At the end of the day, this was a great day of gaming! I really enjoyed the new list, one that I hadn’t played before – lots of skink chaff and heavy on the magic. Loremaster High is a ton of fun, I loved having the ability to make decisions like “I don’t need this spell anymore, and I could use spell X” in the middle of the game, it allowed a lot of customization and mid-game adjustment. But the bunker unit is a bust, to many points and not enough ability to be used. Lastly, Chakax won’t be coming out again as a Chakax until the next book — 270 points for a poorly protected scar-vet with a barely usable magic-item destruction ability, vs 154 for a scar-vet with a 1+ armour save and 3 S7 attacks. Bah! I might use him as an on-foot Lord, if the moment presents itself. I’m also now thinking about getting a Bastilodon with a Solar Engine, because it sounds fun!