Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So as some of you might know, D&D Attack Wing is due to be released this month. In fact, it was supposed to be this week. Delays at the port have pushed back WK's October/November release schedule and even though D&D Attack Wing apparently shipped earlier the official release will still be delayed until October 29.

In other news, the Tiamat figure prize support offered for the first cycle of organized play was previously available for pre-order from some online retailers. They have since received clarification from distributors that the figure will not be available through retail. Those of you familiar with the DS9 situation will know to append a big fat "YET" to the end of that statement.

The prices on miniature market look much higher than the STAW prices. Are the dragons much bigger, or is Wizkids strangling it's next big thing with its own greed?

The dragons are bigger, Slave I or M Falcon size I'm told.

...and I'm hooked. Crap.

Anyone else notice the cheesy grin on the blue dragon? am I the only one not impressed with the model quality? for a DND game, I expect better, especially if I'm paying more per model... Wizkids, need to get your act together.

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
Anyone else notice the cheesy grin on the blue dragon? am I the only one not impressed with the model quality? for a DND game, I expect better, especially if I'm paying more per model... Wizkids, need to get your act together.

It's WizKids. Miniature quality does not concern them....or game balance for that matter if STAW is any example. I'd stay FAR FAR away from this one after getting sucked into the steaming pile that is STAW.

The dragons are pretty large, at least 4 or 5 times as much plastic as a STAW model. The sculpts are easily better than any STAW model, although that is hardly a high bar. Each dragon is on a large base.

I really like the red one. And, they are in fact freaking huge. I think I'm hooked now. We'll see.

Well, I will provide extensive review coverage. I have the whole of Wave 0 coming ASAP.

Picked up the starter and the green dragon last night. Comparing with the other 4 or 5 people who bought stuff last night, the red and green dragons are great. The copper dragons are iffy; mines needs a good paint wash and some highlights but is ok. Most of yhe coppers look more gold than copper. Blue just needs some paint wash; same with the frost giant, some wash would do it good. Sculpts are all solid, look good. I never played STAW but based on perspective from the other guys there they liked the tweaks to the system that Wizkids made. Played a few games last night, on the whole I. Pretty happy with it.

My stuff is in the post and should arrive tomorrow ... ugh, if I am around to sign for it. I hate that sign confirmation parcel service; it is the opposite of convenient.

I picked up one of each yesterday and as usual, they would all greatly benefit from a proper wash. With that said, they are heads and shoulders above regular Wizkids quality.

Indeed.

I'm unimpressed with the Paint Job but the Models are actually quite nice.

And yes, they're BIG. All three adult dragons in the starter set are what X-wing refers to as 'large ships' - an up-sized base more or less equivalent to four normal base in a square.

We had a quick play around with it on saturday. First observations:

We played the starter game, with the named red and blue dragons, but allowed actions.

The new range ruler (range 1-4, with each range step being about a '1' manouvre) is interesting.

Melee range is out to range 2, and the dragons all have attacks back and forwards - meaning that avoiding attacks is damn hard, even with a high level dragon - because you don't 'die' until the end phase, so even if someone rushes in and does lethal damage, you still get a chance for revenge.

Colliding with someone still lets you take actions and attack, which will be a nasty shock or welcome bonus to X-wing players. It's not a surprise, when you bear in mind that the attack is swiping claws rather than fire from fixed lasers.

That, in turn, means the only safe way to engage is from long range with breath weapons - which are upgrades costing you extra points - or to come in from the flanks and go for your opponent's wings.

Probably not co-incidentally, 'Feint' - sensor echo or barrel roll by another name - is only on one dragon (the copper) and is exhausting (think stress/auxiliary power) to use; WizKids have realised that this is going to be a very important ability for creatures that get it.

'Duration tokens' are a new thing. Using a lot of abilities places X tokens, which you can remove one per turn until it's usable again (i.e. multi-turn recharge). Conversely, some upgrades (especially spells) once triggered gain a number of tokens, lasting for multiple turns.

Most breath weapons seem to be 3-turn recharge, so they're very much 'once on approach, then used as opportunities permit', because planning more than 2-3 turns into the game isn't easy.

There's also an 'infinite duraton' token, which doesnt get removed - this is usually for things that need a specific action to clear and is more like the 'disabled' tokens Attack Wing players are used to.

Also, dragons are damn tough. Armour is not ablative defence like shields, but rather damage mitigation like defence dice - each point of armour cancels a point of damage from every attack that you suffer. With the dragons having 4-5 melee dice versus 2 armour and 1 defence die, plus a dodge (evade) action, actually landing a hit without extra dice or substantial ability to modify tokens is bloody hard.

The key thing is that some attacks ignore armour (most breath weapons and spells) and that you can only cancel damage, not critical hits - so anything which increases your odds of doing a critical hit is a big deal. There's a card which is an analogue of the X-wing card 'Marksmanship' which I expect to see a LOT more use!

Lastly, WizKids has reined in their 'take unique named ships or don't bother' tendancies a bit. The difference between the named and unnamed dragons is sustantial - 6-8 points on a 40-odd point dragon, buying you a point of health, upgrade slots, a special rule, and a higher level (which as noted is less important than it has previously been). However, there are also upgrades tied only to those dragons, so you're also paying opportunity cost for these items.

The three dragons in the box each look like they'll play fairly differently:

Red Dragon:
An unsubtle bruiser. The best melee fighter, and has 'charge' - essentially 'boost' but as part of your attack and netting you a bonus melee die into the bargain! With 5 starting attack dice going up to 6 for charging, an adult red actually has enough raw power to punch through dragonhide and reliably do damage with its melee attack. The named red is even better at this - if it's more bloodied than its opponent (which is likely as it's probably going to come off worst in an exchange of breath weapons), it gets further attack bonuses.

Fire breath is superb crowd control but not great at killing a single target. It's a range 3 cone covering the forward arc and hitting everything in there - something new and quite scary as a concept for X-wing players! Certainly not something you'll get much use out of if you end up in a furball with multiple friendlies involved, but great at hurting several enemy dragons at once.

Blue Dragon
More of a sniper. It's pretty much a red with a worse melee attack and no charge action - Its manouvre dial is essentially the same, just with a slightly faster wingover (koiogran) for less points. The named blue, however, gets an extra attack dice at longer ranged attacks (i.e. out of melee range) and has a unique upgrade (devotrix of tiamat) which gives her even more ranged attack dice with a reroll to boot.

Lightning breath is a bolt rather than a cone - out to range 4, hitting everyone along the line (and again ignoring armour). Whilst skewering multiple enemies is going to take some doing, it's a lot more discriminate than flame breath, so can be used in a close furball without accidentally tazering your friends. More importantly, in addition to a longer range, it has an extra attack die. Stacked with the named blue's abilities, the opening shot of the game can seriously hurt an opponent and turn the subsequent close brawl into a mopping up exercise.

Copper Dragon
Haven't used this one yet, but if the Red is a bruiser and the Blue a sniper, this one looks like a dogfighter. The ability to reverse rather than wingover jumps off the dial, as does the fact that it's the only one of the starter set dragons with the feint action - it's going to win by outmanouvring an opponent. The named copper adds to this, by gaining two extra defence dice whenever it's moving at high speeds.

I picked up the starter set, Green Dragon, Wraiths, and Hobgoblins. Did a cursory look at the game, but haven't really gotten into the weeds with it yet- too many college midterms this week.

One thing I've noticed- there seems to be a very large lack of release information about this game. Even the Wizkids website doesn't list everything that's available yet.

How does the air combat vs. ground combat thing work? Have you tried that yet? For the peeps that don't know- there are levels to the playfield- like my unit of Hobgoblins are ground troops on the battlefield, but my Dragons fly above the battlefield.

What's the point system like? Is it like STAW, or have they figured out an actual points cost formula for models?

@locarno24 -- beautiful write up, thanks!

I played the Copper against the Red and Blue in a free for all at GenCon. It came down me and the Red and it felt like I was the matador. I lost by miscalculating a maneuver but probably could have kept the Red charging at thin air for a while longer with a bit more experience.

One thing to add about armor -- it can be shattered via crit damage.

Indeed. There's a 'cracked' side on the reverse of the armour token.

There aren't many armour-reducing criticals in the deck, though.

Points are much like X-wing:

Base cost of dragon (higher for named version)
+ 'Dragon' slot upgrades (breath weapons and talents)
+ 'Spell' slot upgrades (only the named dragons seem to have these, and they seem mostly one-use)

There's no separation equivalent to ship/captain, obviously; a dragon has its named 'level' on its card.

no idea about air-to-ground; will try it tonight and see.

So far, I love the Copper Dragons, with the Green Dragon being a close second. I am really liking this over X-wing at the moment I just wish I could find people to play with besides the few demo's I've done.

 Toeko wrote:
So far, I love the Copper Dragons, with the Green Dragon being a close second. I am really liking this over X-wing at the moment I just wish I could find people to play with besides the few demo's I've done.

A surprising lack of players in my area too. I think the market is a bit saturated at the moment with appealing games at the moment.

I'm hoping to wrangle enough players to run tournaments with a local shop, but with only one demo lined up next week it's not looking great.

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

 Toeko wrote:
So far, I love the Copper Dragons, with the Green Dragon being a close second. I am really liking this over X-wing at the moment I just wish I could find people to play with besides the few demo's I've done.

A surprising lack of players in my area too. I think the market is a bit saturated at the moment with appealing games at the moment.

I'm hoping to wrangle enough players to run tournaments with a local shop, but with only one demo lined up next week it's not looking great.

Wow, the game just came out like, what? A week ago? Wizkids hasn't been promoting the game all that much, and I have to tell you, "D&D Attack Wing" looks/sounds a lot like "D&D Miniatures", especially when both games heavily promote dragons in their advertisement. The models even look similar- not surprising when they are under license from Wizards of the Coast.

How much D&D Attack wing did your LGS get in? Mine basically ordered three of everything Why three? I have no idea. I managed to snag a base set, a Green Dragon, Hobgoblins, and Wraths. Haven't been able to play a game yet with the other guys that bought a set. The LGS has gotten more than a few inquires, and I hope to play a game or two with some people this week, so hopefully it will expand from there.

Be patient, advertise the game more with your LGS, do some demo's, and it'll build. Just from reading the rule book and poking around online, D&D Attack Wing has a much tighter rule set then STAW, so for the people that want better rules, they'll come to DADAW. Or, as I like to put it, DAW (Dragon Attack Wing). DADAW sounds kinda creepy when you are playing with little plastic toy soldiers and kids...

 Tamwulf wrote:

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

 Toeko wrote:
So far, I love the Copper Dragons, with the Green Dragon being a close second. I am really liking this over X-wing at the moment I just wish I could find people to play with besides the few demo's I've done.

A surprising lack of players in my area too. I think the market is a bit saturated at the moment with appealing games at the moment.

I'm hoping to wrangle enough players to run tournaments with a local shop, but with only one demo lined up next week it's not looking great.

Wow, the game just came out like, what? A week ago? Wizkids hasn't been promoting the game all that much, and I have to tell you, "D&D Attack Wing" looks/sounds a lot like "D&D Miniatures", especially when both games heavily promote dragons in their advertisement. The models even look similar- not surprising when they are under license from Wizards of the Coast.

How much D&D Attack wing did your LGS get in? Mine basically ordered three of everything Why three? I have no idea. I managed to snag a base set, a Green Dragon, Hobgoblins, and Wraths. Haven't been able to play a game yet with the other guys that bought a set. The LGS has gotten more than a few inquires, and I hope to play a game or two with some people this week, so hopefully it will expand from there.

Be patient, advertise the game more with your LGS, do some demo's, and it'll build. Just from reading the rule book and poking around online, D&D Attack Wing has a much tighter rule set then STAW, so for the people that want better rules, they'll come to DADAW. Or, as I like to put it, DAW (Dragon Attack Wing). DADAW sounds kinda creepy when you are playing with little plastic toy soldiers and kids...

Oh, I agree with you whole heartedly. I will be doing what I can to build up a player base. Most of my complaining came from the fact that if it isn't W40k or Magic, it isn't played. X- Wing and STAW was played very shortly before everyone went back to what they were doing.

but I shall persevere

Well, we have a decent X-wing and (Star Trek) Attack Wing player base, plus a sizeable RPG group who may be lured in by the D&D aspect (I took it along and had a game on the RPG evening, to the sound of many "oooh....shiny" comments from the background. More importantly, the local store owner is wanting to play it, and has committed to running the OPs - one thing Wizkids generally put a reasonable amount of support into.


Had a 90 point game on friday with Balagos and an adult Red versus a more decked-out Eshaedra and an Adult Blue.

Thoughts:

1 - Eshaedra pays (9) points, relative to a 'generic' blue, plus (4) for lightning breath and (3) - I think? - for her unique upgrade, devotrix of Tiamat. That's essentially a 16 point upgrade for a weapon that's probably not going to fire more than twice in a game.

2 - BLOODY HELL IT'S SCARY! Balagos is the most expensive dragon in the game, at not far shy of fifty points, and she damn near one-shotted him!

3 - If you are facing Eshaedra and she has her lightning breath and devotrix ready to go, then always, always use the dodge action unless you have a better defensive option. Until/unless some cheaper units (young dragons, for example) get released, there is nothing in the game you can afford to let her get a shot at with that unholy draconic tazer of hers.

4 - By comparison, Balagos - who we bought a breath weapon - would probably have been better served with melee and toughness upgrades. Flame breath is nice, but you don't need to be a high level to make effective use of it - a 5-dice, range three cone ahead of the creature is worth it even if only as area denial. Leave that to the generic adult reds. Balagos' spell slot, better toughness, and special rule are better served by making him a brawler. Bushwhack, Close Quarters, and either the arcane spells Shield or Blur would be good. Both of these spells last longer than one turn, so you can hang back, trigger them, and then dart forwards next turn.

5 - I suspect only a red can make much use of close quarters (at the moment) - because if you stack an attack die penalty on, blues and coppers aren't really capable of punching through dragonhide. A charging red, on the other hand, is.

6 - Balagos is, I think, best as a bully. Send him after a generic dragon that moves first (ideally not a copper), so you can line yourself up and charge. By comparison, a generic red with a target token can scorch a big chunk of the board with armour-pierching firepower (and ignores blur, as it's a cone), making it a better choice for hunting named dragons. Add searing flames if you have points spare, because it's easy to almost but not quite kill a dragon with a breath weapon and a target token, and one extra damage could make all the difference.

7 - criticals rarely take out your upgrades but at the wrong moment are still very nasty. Eshaedra died after taking a 'stunned' critical - no manouvres above speed 1 and no actions for a turn - which is much like an X-wing Ion Token and stress token combined.

8 - Reading the rulebook (a drastic step, I know!) I noticed after the game that a generic Legion is supposed to be 120 points rather than 100. That means - at the moment - that a generic Legion will be three adult dragons, with a few upgrades - one of each isn't a bad pairing - with one named dragon.

9 - Need to try Galados. My main concern is that he's going to have serious issues hurting anyone with only three attack dice. I figure that his acid breath is going to end up being his primary attack, which means that a Ring of Swift Breath is probably an important buy. Hidecarved scales are nice, although you'll be trying to avoid being shot at in the first place, whilst Blur is opponent specific - provided it's not a Red using fire breath, you're fine. Extra defence dice become proportionately more valuable the more you have to start with, so the fact that Galados can rack up four plus a dodge token (or even five with a dodge token at range 4) without upgrades means Blur is a pretty good buy.


Ground troops look a bit like fighters from attack wing, if I understand their rules. They'll take some killing but (again) breath weapons - especially fire breath from an adult red - can rip them apart wholesale.

Flyers can place a 'swooping' token with their manouvre, allowing them to melee ground units, then next turn can 'land' turning them into ground units themselves. The fact that it takes two turns to land, and that you can still attack swooping units from flight, or ground units whilst swooping, means that heading for the hard deck isn't an option for evading an enemy unit. I haven't seen stats yet, but I suspect troops (the term for massed infantry blocks) are largely intended to be blocking units and defenders, barring spells and upgrades.

I saw this being played in a FLGS on Saturday. The Dragon models may be big, but the plastic they are made from is cheap and rubbery. It's certainly nowhere near the quality of the plastic used for the X-Wing models.

 LuciusAR wrote:
I saw this being played in a FLGS on Saturday. The Dragon models may be big, but the plastic they are made from is cheap and rubbery. It's certainly nowhere near the quality of the plastic used for the X-Wing models.

I think everyone can agree that when it comes to pre-painted plastic games, X-Wing has the best models on the market.

Like STAW, all the DAW models can benefit from a good repaint, or even just a wash or dry brush.

locarno24- thanks for the heads up. I've loved blue dragons for a long time. I've heard Eshaedra is a long range sniper. Indeed, looking at her (his?) card and the combo you just described... that's six attack dice with rerolls on the blanks and penetrates armor.

I'm really looking forward to the Organized Play from Wizkids. I just hope there will be a reason to bring ground troops/infantry.

Damn after reading Iocarano's post, maybe I should have bought it. I had it in my hands and put it down. I am shocked the boxset seems like a great price when the individual minis were $27.99 Canadian each.

So my question is how is the ground combat or combat for ground combatants? Can you have ground vs ground? Is it fun? Does it add to the game or just badly implemented? Can we make our Skyrim games out of this?

Also I don't know much about D&D, so would I not understand what is what or would it still be good to try?

My only concern is I don't think I can afford Wizkid product anymore. :( I dropped a lot of cash on their recent Clix releases, which is stupid of me since there aren't really that many Clix players in my area. (Zero to be exact, in my actual town. I have to drive an hour or more one way just to get games)

This game, while looking fun, won't compete with what X-Wing players we have, so it would be wasted money. :( And Wizkids stuff is getting more and more expensive it feels. Gone are the days of 7 buck booster boxes.

I still know nothing of ground troops.
I mean, I've read the rules for Troop units, but:

(a) They're not dragons, and can therefore get stuffed
(b) The models are awful. The dragons are nice models with a bad paint job, but the elf and wraith troops are just bad

I had a couple of games last night, where I successfully demonstrated my incompetence to my own satisfaction, losing twice and not getting a single kill.

Me:
Claugilyamatar (Level 10 Adult Green), Poison Breath, Derision, Invisibility, Magic Missile
Galadros (Level 10 Adult Bronze), Acid Breath, Trickster, Hidecarved Scales, Shield, Magic Missile

Opponent:
Eshaedra (Level 9 Adult Blue), Lightning Breath, System Shock, Devotrix of Tiamat, Ice Storm, Command
Balagos (Level 8 Adult Red), Fire Breath, Legendary Resistance, Bushwhack, Protection From Energy

I lost due to screwing up.

in both cases, my opponent deployed both dragons as a pair and moved out into the mid board. I tried to flank - I knew that with the two weaker dragons there was no way a head-to-head pass could end well for me.

In the first game, I did reasonably well, mostly due to an outrageously lucky first attack with Claugilyamatar, which hit both opponents with poison breath. Eshaedra only took one hit, but Balagos took three criticals, two of which were deep wounds - which could easily have killed him in a couple of turns if I'd been lucky (I wasn't. He took not one further point of damage from them). Claugilyamatar and Eshaedra dogfighted a big, both inflicting a stunned result on one another, stopping one another from attacking. Galadros was looping round Balagos, using Feint to tighten the turn, but then crashed into the back of Claugilyamatar because I'm an idiot and forgot using feint is exhausting, so he couldn't feint again. Left in arc of Balagos, the red used fire breath once and killed the copper outright.

In the second game, I used a speed 4 bank, hoping to loop in from the side, but mis-judged it, and ended up in the forward arc of eshaedra. One range 4 lighting breath with a target token later and the copper was blown out of the air (again). Claugilyamatar did okay, but the result was never really in doubt, and three turns later a Devotrix of Tiamat-enhanced Lightning Breath fried her too.

Lessons Learned:

a) I need to pay more attention to my own units. I forgot Galadros had an exhaustion token, and lost him because of it. I forgot which of my two had cone and which had beam breaths, and didn't get a shot with Claugilyamatar on the opening turn of the second game as a result

b) Breath weapons are apparently quel awesome. If we used melee attacks twice in both games, I'd be surprised. Certainly they did virtually nothing compared to the breath weapons. I suspect armour may matter more when monsters face troops, but that's guessing. As a result, Hidecarved scales felt like wasted money.

c) The 'heavy' dragons are, if not inevitably one-shotting a 'light' with a breath weapon, certainly capable of doing so, because it happened twice in two games. 5-6 rerolled attack dice, 2 defence dice, and 4 hit points. It's like uncloaked TIE phantoms facing off against one another.

d) One thing to note is that with big bases and beam/cone breath attacks, it's very easy to find friendly dragons in the field of fire. I wasn't able to use Galadros' attack in the first game because Claugilyamatar was in the way, and Balagos got in Eshaedra's way in the second game. A Target token is a good call for this - in the first game, Claugilyamatar was brought down because Balagos used Fire Breath whilst Eshaedra was in the cone of fire - using a Target token to reroll the hits and crits to make them go away.

e) Spells were good - this was my first outing with them. Ice Storm was nice, more because it doesn't take any action to trigger - you disable it and just sub it out for your attack. At the same time, the fact that it lasts a couple of turns means it's easy to find the caster get caught by it for the second turn. Shield should have been good if only I could roll attack dice. Galadros gets two bonus attack dice when moving flat out, taking him up to 6 attack dice against ranged fire for a couple of turns (the turn you cast it and one turn after). Invisibility was nice but I broke it by attacking (which discards rather than just shuts it down reusably) both times. I think that you need someone specifically set up to ruin people's day with non-attack actions to make the most of it. Protection from Energy was nice but didn't do much because there were multiple energy types on the board, and melee attacks don't have an energy type. I think this spell will be much more useful against a force of dragons of a single colour - which is a good reason not to do that.

f) Derision never got used. placing an exhaustion token is nice, but if you're at range 2 in Claugilyamatar's front arc....primarily she's going to want to stab you, so a target token is generally a better bet, especially if I take Toxic Affliction to put a crippling effect on her breath weapon. Trickster is probably a better choice for a flanking dragon because I have to be out of your arc, you don't need to be in mine.

g) I may try things the other way around - using Galadros with Invisibility and Trickster (since that's not an attack), and giving Claugilyamatar something else (Shield or False Life).

h) 120 points is enough for two named dragons with every slot used (both of us were actually at the ~ 100 point mark). Taking one named and two generic dragons would allow three, but I'm concerned that with the 'light' dragons, shooting last means not shooting at all; without their defensive special rules and with only three hit points each, I suspect you'll be at least one dragon down before they get to fire. More importantly, numbers aren't as useful as they are in X-wing; Balagos has a 5-dice cone attack (6 if he's badly wounded!) and that can easily take down two generic coppers or greens simultaneously.

i) I could do with testing out a 'generic' force against named dragons. Certainly numbers are on your side - you could get four copper dragons with acid breath against Balagos & Eshaedra (I think that if you've got four dragons, each with only three hit points, on the field, going with beam breath attacks not cones are the way to go!)

locarno24 wrote:
shooting last means not shooting at all

Don't forget you don't remove non-troop models until the end of the turn, so even if you get killed first, you still get to "fight back"!

A fair point. I'd forgotten that - as long as you get your breath attack off, you can be shot down immediately after, and as long as the aggregate fire is sufficient to take down one or two dragons on the enemy side, it's all well and good.

That still leaves the same problems that swarms always have in flightpath games - 3 attack dice twice is generally not as good as five attack dice once, and a unit moving first has trouble getting a target token in the initial pass as the enemy moves into range after it.

At the same time, that does mean that 3-4 adult copper dragons might work after all.

Also - have a look on Youtube - there's an unboxing (well, unbagging) video of the first OP prize; the Ancient White Dragon.

Looks interesting. First off, it's damn tough - 2 armour and 8 hit points in the case of the named version - and a scary level 13. No defence dice, but how often is one die really going to help you that much?

More importantly the generic is also level 6, putting it one better than the generic 'Adult' Dragons released to date.

It may move last and strike first, but it's got a range 3 cone breath rather than a range 4 beam, and it's damned unmanouvrable. It's the first dragon with no ability to perform a wing-over, and its only hard turn (at speed 3) is an exhausting red manouvre. I'd suggest that the named White is a prime candidate for the amulet of aerobatics, because otherwise it's going to be almost incapable of turning around in the length of the board (anyone who's used a Lambda Shuttle in X-wing will be fully aware of how much fun that isn't).

On the plus side, the rules team have clearly realised that your enemies will get behind you and planned accordingly.

Firstly, the Ancient's tail attack reaches out to range 3, not range 2. Secondly, the Tail Sweep upgrade is a 'disable to use' card which lets you thwack everyone in your rear arc with your tail, not just one opponent.

Whilst Balagos is not bad at stabbing people (with 5-6 attack dice), he's still generally better with his fire breath. The White, however, is uncompromisingly optimised for stabbings. The named white gets Close Quarters for free, getting extra melee attacks, and Cold Breath's optional damage effect, Frozen, leaves your opponent stuck with speed 1 manouvres that won't let them dodge you (assuming they survive a 5-dice breath weapon in the first place).

Feebleminded is a spell which....well....at the moment it seems a bit guff. It uses your attack to stick an ongoing effect on someone which stops them using spell upgrades.
But attacks come after actions, so they've already used any spells they were going to use that turn, and if the spell was invisibility/blur/shield, then it's going to make it hard to hit them with said spell in the first place.

Most importantly, and fundamentally, using your attack and a spell slot to prevent your opponent using an attack and a spell slot doesn't strike me as really 'winning' much tactical space - it's like cards which let you take stress/auxiliary power to place the same number of stress/auxiliary power on an opponent.

Especially since you can't do this 'on a budget' because only the expensive named dragons have spell slots.

It may be more useful on something like the elven mage - because that's a cheap unit with a spell slot, so I'd sacrifice her attack & slot to knock out a defensive spell on a 50+ point adult dragon.

We had our first OP event last night. I went 2-1 with 371 points, but that wasn't enough for a white dragon :(

I took Lord Max with Life Steal, a ballista with artillery master, and a red dragon with fire breath.

Round 1, I played against another Lord Max, a ballista (maybe the named one but I forget), and a mage with an assortment of unknown spells. The mage one-shot Lord Max with something, my red one shot the mage, and our ballistas ate each other. It ended with just his Max and my Red flying around, but he out maneuvered me and got the kill.

Round 2, I played against named Copper, named Blue, and a ballista. It was pretty uneventful as I chewed my way through everything and took all five objectives for a perfect 170-0 score.

Round 3, I played against named Red and three generic ballistas. Again, nothing too special...he had to deploy the ballistas first and he put them all rather clumped up on one side. My red raced up the other flank and fire breathed them. Max and my ballista were able to take down the named Red, although Max was sitting at one wound remaining several turns and clinging on via life steal.

Lessons learned. Max is stupid good, but dragons are funner. I really don't like the ballista thematically - its mechanics are just weird in this game, but taking a basic ballista with artillery master is just such a good buy...