Elfs, Part 1: Some Assorted Nonsense and Something About Elves

For the life of me, I just could not get my head wrapped around a Sunday and Monday post.  Until right this very minute.  Amazing.  It's like you all can actually see me have ideas from the comfortable anonymity of your own bat-caves/McMansions/Hovels or what-have-you.

On Sunday, I was going to write about a pretty excellent Wargaming ASKEW article by Squire Tastytaste over on BoLS.  Oh, and the utterly irrational stupidity that you've come to expect from the comments section.  Buuuuuut... I stopped giving a fuck half way through.

Today, I was going to write up a bit on the various GW options you have for your skirmish gaming - Kill Teams, Combat Patrol and Necromunda.  A compare and contrast kind of thing.  Unfortunately, I don't have the street cred to talk about games I haven't played (Kill Teams, Combat Patrol) and its been literally over a decade since I last played Necromunda.

I think I'd rather talk about Elves instead.  Some of you may find it hard to believe that I just wrote that.

But first, A quick run down of the two almost-rans.  Turns out they don't need a whole post.

The Color of Bullshit is Devlan Mud - actually TastyTaste's article was a pretty solid piece of humor dealing with being over-reliant on a painting technique to the point that it's holding you back.  Turns out that there are a lot of militant Devlan Mud fans who totally missed the point.  Especially this guy, Muskie.  Who, in the process of clumsily transitioning from confused nerd-rage to shameless self promotion, only managed to prove that he is a very uninteresting writer.  I hadn't seen blog posts that boring since the last time I went through my own archives. HIYO!  Although Muskie wins extra bonus points for a terrible nickname and being almost the only person to ever comment on his blog.  ON HIS OWN BLOG!  I'm such a bitch. Well, I learned and I'm sure he will too.

BOOOOOOOOOO!

Necro-Combat-Teams.. munda- Kill Team (Battle Missions version) doesn't have enough limits, Combat Patrol has too many.  Necromunda is way more investment in time than is worth it sometimes.  I think there's a middle ground between all three.  But, I need to get some games in with the two 40k mods.  Oh, and bonus points for Tau being the only army that still manages to get stuck with compulsory unit choices in either game. 

Right so on to the attractive and willowy meat of the today's post that is totally, not at all made up at the last minute.


ELFS!

Hmmm, probably going to have to premtively "part one"-ify this bitch.

ELFS!  (Part 1)

8th edition Fantasy has been a real motherfucker in terms of me wanting to spend money and wanting to paint new and crazy things.  It's like the new rule book, Tommy from 3rd Rock From the Sun and that girl from Juno snuck into my dreams and planted their own ideas in my brain.  Oooh, topical.  I'm sure Dethtron and Brent were involved in some ancillary capacity.  In any case, those damn, dirty elves have gotten their hands on me.

Up until recently in my life, I wasn't much of an Elf person.  They were typically portrayed as the super douches of the fantasy landscape.  And the people who were typically drawn to them were super douches as well.  Thankfully, where D&D embraces this, Shadowrun makes fun of it a bit with the whole elf-poseur sub-culture.  And the names, oh Unholy Krondor* the names.  If it wasn't some effeminate bullshit with a bunch of L's in it, it was some effeminate bullshit combo word about animals or the dawn or magic or some such crap. Ugh. There's only so much Elmondoria Magichawk a guy can take.

See what I mean?

Pro-tip:  searching for pictures of elves with google safe search turned off is a mixed bag.

Hell there was even a time when I was still plating WoW that I began to develop a racist attitude toward the bastards.  That's right, actual racism against a fictional race.  I... had problems back then.


Then I discovered that the Eldar had grav-tanks and were pretty damn rock and roll.  Been really enjoying the Eldar codex and all the fluff since that moment.  The space elves are some pretty tough dudes as it turns out.  They make war, not poetry.  They also spend more time actively trying to screw people over and killing motherfuckers rather than simply ignoring them and ultimately agreeing to help out of some sense of honor or duty. 


Quick experiment - compare the wikipedia entry for the Tolkein elves with the entry for the High Elves in Warhammer Fantasy.  Which dudes would you rather hang out with?  The guys whose entry details naming conventions or the guys whose entry details their ass-kicking conventions?


Plus, it doesn't hurt that the models are pretty bad-ass.   

So the Eldar opened my eyes to the wonderful world of bad-ass elves that GW runs.  Non of this Tolkein bullshit and D&D jackassery I was used to. 


Now that the Fantasy bug has eaten its way to the center of my brain, I keep trying to figure out which army I'll play.  There were some early contenders in the Lizardmen**, Skaven and Beastmen, but it keeps coming back to elves. And they come in three flavors, Dark, High and Wood.  Suh-weet.


I think what attracts me to the fantasy elves are the same qualities that attracted me to the Eldar - sleek lines on the models, a range that has a pretty solid visual motif that links the models together, fast moving units and a weird tendency towards elite specializations.  All three flavors have those qualities.  Not to mention the fact that the elves can play in all three combat phases of the game rather than just one or two. 


Now, just to decide which elves I like best and then ignore them for a while. 


------[Foot Notes]--------------------------------------

*Evil be thy name.
**Had to sell the Stegadon Herd to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch.  Then the wife died of dysentery and Junior went off to fight in the war.  Its just me and the dust bowl now.