Sometimes Fluff Is Plain Weird

Hail and Greetings!  Things are moving along very well in my second Mage Knight career (5-1-1 if anybody cares), and my group is actually getting along fairly well.  Not bad for a game that's been dead for more than a decade.


It's actually almost frightening how readily available most of the figures are, even more that there enough of a market out there that I actually run into competition when seeking some of the choicer goodies out there.  There's even a small but active trading site for this stuff out there (seems to have a very elitist attitude about it, though).


I've managed to collect enough to get the flexibility I need to actually be something resembling competitive against the higher level player I have; we're whaling the stuffing out of each other when we play, through our new blood is starting to catch up.  We've all managed to learn new things about the game, and actually making use of some of the abilities and unit that were usually left by the wayside in the old days.  All we really need are some of the bigger units and a nice big terrain pool and things should really start to heat up!


Right now I'm focusing my efforts on the Black Powder Rebels faction, with some Knight Immortal for both aesthetic reasons and to give my army a much needed melee boost.  I just find something appealing about having a bunch of gun-toting underdogs being backed up with elven badasses right out of the better fantasy books. 


I always found the fluff behind the Knights Immortal/Atlantis Guild alliance before 2.0 to be kinda shaky, even from a realpolitik perspective.  I had a very hard time seeing the awesome, law-and-order High Elves willing to deal with the expansionist, racist, and morally bankrupt Wizard Rome that is Atlantis.  It's telling that the current Emperor rejected a Faustian bargain and the mages collectively lost their minds over it, deciding that he wasn't evil and power-hungry enough to rule.  Then the avatar of Voldemort Augustus Tezla crowned the guy, declaring him the true heir to the empire.  Vecna Junior Tezla put his 'favored' wizards in their place there.  The High Elves supposedly find these guys to be vaguely amusing evil upstarts, by the way.  Supposedly it was a mutual attempt to being order back, but it was clear a backstabbing was coming.  At least we got really awesome dual-faction units out of the deal.


I always felt the Rebels were a better fit, especially with the idealistic 'Free Armies' Knights running around all over the place.  But no, we got belly dancers and 40k Orks instead.  At least the way Mage Knight is put together encourages players to put together their own army the way they want and work out their own fluff about their dudes if they want.


Well, I need to wander off.  Go Forth, and Conquer Some Tables!