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I was discussing with some friends about how to build my chaos lord and I had thought of mounting him on a chaos dragon. Upon hearing this they (who are the people i play with) said that it was a cheap shot and the no one would play me. I could see their logic, however isn't the power of the dragons balanced by their cost (360 pts)? I figured that GW wouldn't have made them if they were really that good, but then again they did make Broketonians! I was wondering what the experianced players on this forum thought about this subject. Would any of you play against someone who had a dragon in their army, whether or not it was a mount?

Dragons are a bit lop-sided. Some armies have no trouble dealing with them; others really struggle. With Chaos, you have to be careful, as the Chaos Lord on Dragon w/Golden Eye of Tzeentch (3+ ward save for him & his mount) is pretty much the current definition of cheese.

Dragons are an important part of Fantasy lore. I don't mind playing against them (even the nastiest of dragon-mounted lords will struggle against blocks of semi-decent infantry, after all), you just don't necessarily want to see them every game.

I've played many armies that have Dragons, I view them as balanced. The ability to handle a Dragon with a Lord on the back is something you have to get into a competitive list.

dragons are very tricky to use, and easy to deny. all you really have to do to them is insure that they don't have free reign of places to land. without that they can't just fly into your line and cause mass havoc...that's the best way i found to deal with them

Does the golden eye only work for missiles? I thought that's what i read. What about the Gaze of the Gods?

golden eye works for missiles only (magic or mundane). gaze of the gods is a 4+ no matter what, but if he ever flees he becomes a spawn so it kinda sucks

Golden eye works for the mount too.
That is why it is so good.

What about HElves dragon mages and the like? Is that
more beard or background?

dragons are better used in bigger games i think. Like 3000 points, or something near that number. Anything under that and I think your opponent is making a pretty cheddar-esque move. Not to mention just kind of a poor decision.

My gamer community is divided in two groups. Those that think Chaos is the best ever and majorly overpowered. And those that think that Chaos is the easiest army to beat.
Most important argument is lack of shooting, I guess a dragon is a way to at least getting SOMEthing in the shooting phase. (we don't want to use the chaos dwarfs' hell cannon, do we?)

In the tourney scene here in Oz chaos dragons are widely seen at 2250 points, HE dragons less so only because you lose so much good stuff in the HE list due to the points cost.

I always struggled with dragons of any sort with my VCs as I could never kill them- that would change in the new list with more heavy hitters.

Also direct fire warmachines (cannons, bolt throwers), and fanatics are great dragon killers.
2 tourneys ago a HE plyer dropped a dragon and prince n front of a NG line, 4 fanatics later and no dreagon and a prince with 1 wound.

When I do chaos (when new hordes book is out) a dragon riding lord will start my force and be phased out as I buy more models.

For real fun and friendship play a 3000 point game with:
2 chaos lords, both on dragons. (one with MOT) Gen with MOCU
3 chaos giants.
7 Chariots to fill points (one with MOT)

12 models, 11 deployments, and hope like hell you aren't playing against woodelves on a forest board.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:For real fun and friendship play a 3000 point game with:
2 chaos lords, both on dragons. (one with MOT) Gen with MOCU
3 chaos giants.
7 Chariots to fill points (one with MOT)

Could you not also jam Asarnil the Dragonlord in there for added wyrm lovin' ...

- Salvage

I found a Lord on Dragon makes mobile DE much easier to use. I'd rather have a dragon lord than any number of Cold One Knights or chariots. Combined with Dark Riders for more flank hits and more bodies, the Dragon can trash anything, anywhere.

I like sun dragons, cheap and effective. Its also seen as more fair than using a bigger dragon, frankly I dont think the advantages of a moon or star dragon are worth the extra points.

This is because the High Elf dragon is there to flank charge a unit, or front charge in conjunction with a large infantry block. Scaring everyone else away at the same time, it best for slaughters rank and file, and breaking whole armies not for hunting down uber characters

The dragon mage is a very good buy as you can double up the role of big flying monster and scroll caddy, well worth the 290pts,

Orlanth wrote:
The dragon mage is a very good buy as you can double up the role of big flying monster and scroll caddy, well worth the 290pts,

Until he is shot off the top of his dragon, be very careful with him first couple turns...

Yes, I have seen that, very painful. I find that boldness is your best defence, if the enemy has fast flankers, charge into one of them, particularly if they cannot flee. Otherwise flank yourself to get out of bow arc.

still it costs 140pts for a scroll cady, with high elves you might as well make him level 2 and try a little offensive magic. Compare that to the cost of a Dragon Mage and you get your monster and magic defence too cheap to be ignored.

Mostly its a points scraper, much needed to afford something elsewhere. Speareleves are a must to bulk up the number, and because thtree ranks striking first has to hurt. I still go with two units of 21. After that its up to personal taste and fancy, there are many many options.

There are only 2 dragon combos I consider cheezy. First is the tzeentch chaos lord on dragon with the eye and staff. The other is the HE lord on star dragon with star lance. The first is a neigh unkillable wizard lord that can mix it up in combat if he wants to. The other is about the only dragon that can take a ranked unit from the front reliably.

VC can pull a nasty trick on those tooled up Chaos lord Dragon. Hold it up by either goading it into charging a ranked unit w/champ or letting it chew into a big units flank and countercharge in with ranked unit with champ. Then challenge. After overkill, dragon team will have max CR 6. You should have 6 (ranks, outnumber, standard) and win with musician. If it doesn't break, or you lack the rest of the command group, Invoc the unit and get the champ back. Repeat until it breaks.

I had this happen. Tzeentch lord on dragon charged my general's ghoul unit in the rear. Next round, in came a flanking unit of ghouls via danse from the vamp inside and a challenge. His CR 8 to my CR 6 saw a dead champ and some more dead ghouls that were easilly invoc'ed back. Then the BSB unit charged him in the rear while dire wolves and bats distracted his other forces and BKs threatened their flanks. Ghoul champ challenges again. Now his CR 8 was up against CR 9. I decided to be bold since a corpse cart had gotten off Miasma and declined to challenge and, instead, slaughtered his Lord and wounded his dragon with lots of attacks (by now there were 4 vamps in combat and lots of plenty of ghoul attacks thanks to the champ). I ended up doing something like 5 unsaved wounds and the dragon only managed to kill 4 ghouls, so he sat on CR 6 to my CR 14 and proceeded to break.

dragons are only cheese in 2000pts or less apart from that i'm ok when i'm killing them i use jezzails (that +1 makes a huge difference)

Nice post resurrection.

yeah all you hae to do is challenge and countercharge like jmurph said. It happened to me in the ard boys against skaven with my empire