I have to agree with Red Geist on it. What made the me choose High Elves over Dark Elves and Wood Elves were their differences. High Elves were still a major hegemonic power, with far flung colonies, a powerful fleet, established cities, a commercialized culture, industry and importantly, unlike Naggaroth and Athel Loren, had a wide range of diverse environs to live in. It was like playing the aged World Empire on it way out, not gone yet and so still like the Byzantine Empire important in the political and cultural history of much of the world, but faded from what it used to be. They even had a really cool king, Finubar, who in a twist for Warhammer was a faction leader who was expressly political rather then just another fighting hero. An army book Elves can't really emulate that, not the way it's done now.
Another thing, to, that is important is that the High Elves had the express capacity for numerous divergent opinions and internal conflict. Ulthuan was a precarious political union of Kingdoms thus the Phoenix King's power was nowhere near absolute. Instead you could play everyone as highly autonomous of each other and we have precedent that the Kingdoms would often not even come to each other's aid, heck sometimes they wouldn't even come to the Phoenix King's aide (poor Finubar). This was awesome since it meant High Elf Players could easily fight each other and also meant that in fluff no one could dominate the faction, the Phoenix King had to play a political game to keep the Kingdoms happy and supporting him and different Kingdoms felt differently about each other. Now, in the Eternity Host, you've got nothing like that. If you don't like Malekith, or disagree with him, who are you going to join who opposes him? Alarielle? I don't think in the entire End Times she as much as scowls at him and she never has a problem following his orders, Imrik? He at least had some token resistance initially but not enough to not kill Ystranna and he's pretty tsun-tsun for Malekith by the end. There is no political divergence anymore. Since Imrik and Alarielle are both lockstep behind Malekith completely you can't have internal rivalry at a major level anymore. All the power players serve Malekith in total, no agendas of their own. The closest you can come is Alith Anar and End Times makes painfully clear how impotent he is in the face of Malekith by the end. That, too me, is a serious loss of a fun dimension all three Elven races had prior. It's Malekith's way now or its the highway.
So that makes it tough for me to construct my army. I've always liked to use fluff as the basis for it, but I my connection to Fantasy's world has been pretty much destroyed by the characterisation I see in End Times Khaine, so I'll have to wait and see if the Storm-of-Chaos it or what before I make my choice. But for now at least I'll just stick to 8th edition purely for my army.
How many of you use fluff in determining your army?
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Re: How many of you use fluff in determining your army?
A lot of players of all three Elven races are having this issue. Many of us are in it for the archetypes and the richness of the game world. Sinking Ulthuan, abandoning Naggaroth and presumably trashing Athel Loren does nothing for the imaginary richness of the world.Spartoi wrote: So that makes it tough for me to construct my army. I've always liked to use fluff as the basis for it, but I my connection to Fantasy's world has been pretty much destroyed by the characterisation I see in End Times Khaine, so I'll have to wait and see if the Storm-of-Chaos it or what before I make my choice. But for now at least I'll just stick to 8th edition purely for my army.
I'll wait and see where things go next edition, because the fact of the matter is the player base is shrinking and needs revived ...but I'm definitely not one for a unified list.