You are What you Eat!

Old Skool-New Skool Series (Article 2)
Your choice of army defines you


I have always been an odd little boy (and yes I was pretty small when compared to my peers as I was growing up. It was only through the no-scientific basis myth of post-circumcision growth spurts that I have grown to the stud of a man I am now… but that’s another story.)

Where was I? Oh yes. I have always been an odd little boy, choosing the road less traveled over the proverbial path of least resistance. I, for example, stuck with the Go-Bots well after I started watching, and loving, the Transformers as rented from the commonplace illegal betamax rental store. I took up baseball while everyone else was avidly playing soccer. I was reading Harper Lee and J.D. Salinger when everyone else was reading “Choose Your Own Adventure”. I… well I’m sure you get my point.

In true ManongGuard form, my army choices have always been odd and a tad more challenging than they have to be. I have been known to field the following 40K weird armies:

1. Assaulty Tau (with no Kroot) – Might not be fluffy but hellalotafun 2. Orange Speed Freeks with a Warboss on Trike and a Basilisk on a Buggy 3. Night Lords when no one else was playing Night Lords… weird looking Defiler called Hydro-cephalloid 4. Thousand Sons crap army 5. and now Iyanden Eldar

This brings me to my longest planned, never delivered army – The Salamanders.

I love this game. I love how hundreds of people fire up their neurons to deliver the ever-changing 40K rules BUT if there is one thing that I love most in 40K, it is the richness of the story. While I will not claim to be an expert in 40K canon (that’s why I have my three trusted buddies to educate me on fluff – Kyuzo, Salubri, and Balian – who are, [could it be?] possibly nerdier that I am), I try to read up as much as I can on armies before I commit to them. I came across the Salamanders (as I did with the Night Lords and Thousand Sons) in one of the old Index Astartes offerings. I read the fluff and liked them immediately. They had almost as much flavor as my favorite loyalists of all-time, the Iron Hands (too bad I do not like black and silver armies), they had challenges that you had to conquer (they used to be I3 marines) and some nice toys as well (Fury of the Salamander, Never Give Up, and that funky Armor you can put on your tanks). They were far from the powerhouses they are now.

I love playing against people with the same philosophy. My game against Beefcake’s Stealers army, for example, while ending in a draw, was memorable as hell. Some other examples are Salubri’s way gay BA Barakus army, Arvin’s lethal Oblits and Heavy galore Iron Warriors, Ricky’s viper-ridden Saim-Hann and Lito’s never-changing SoBs.

So what is my point? I would suggest you get to know your armies, not just rules-wise, but in terms of fluff as well. If you decide to field canonical armies (ones that do have mention in original 40K material), then try to read up on them and field lists that at least approximate what they are supposed to be. I promise you that you will have a richer experience when playing with and against such armies. Challenge yourself. What separates Warhammer from other TCGs and CCGs is that it should not only be about winning.

If you don’t want to bother, then make up your own chapter/craftworld/horde/klan/etc, please. On that note, I leave you with the following message: VULKAN HE’STAN is not a LUNA WOLF! – bang bang Jessie! Peace!

For more pictures of my Iyanden Eldar Serpents, please visit my blog.