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Wings of Purity wrote:But most people don't use fire dragons as anti tank anymore right?

Although they are made for the job but they are just so much better at killing other more important units

I was going to comment about how it was over a month old, but it is your thread.

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What? Why wouldn't we use them as anti-tank? They do it better than any other role. Save the rare nob biker/tyranid warrior deathstar, eldar have things the can handle what the dragons can more efficiently... save anti tank.

Melta weapons are assured, the best 5th ed. anti-armor gun. Now tell me you can get a unit of five for eighty points.

Now tell me you can put them in an ultra-hard fast skimmer for one-hundred points.

Now tell me that they take up a seldom used otherwise elite slot?

Sold.

they are amazing, but there is just so much more for them to do.Most transports wont survive eldar S6 fire power, and they could bring down trygons and nob bikers with ease.

I wanted to pick this up cuz I had fun with dragons again yesterday

Wings of Purity wrote:they are amazing, but there is just so much more for them to do.Most transports wont survive eldar S6 fire power, and they could bring down trygons and nob bikers with ease.

I wanted to pick this up cuz I had fun with dragons again yesterday

They can have their uses like that, though ultimately their anti-tank potential is where they shine. They can easily destroy any tank in the game barring the monolith.

They cannot however, reliably deal with most other nasty units, like thunder terminators, or seer councils. They definitely bite it to anything with more than twelve~ish bodies.

Marine squads are even a stretch for ten of them if they're not vanilla.

my fire dragons don't usually get shot down, the get counter assaulted. Of course I usually take minimum unit sizes as they die so easily no reason to waste extra points on them.

firmlog wrote:my fire dragons don't usually get shot down, the get counter assaulted. Of course I usually take minimum unit sizes as they die so easily no reason to waste extra points on them.

This guy knows what i'm talking about.

Wings of Purity wrote:If they stay together and work together the entire game, well then wait until the last turn and then do it.

Why? What is gained by killing something big and scary AFTER it has done all of its damage? This is especially pertinent when you have the ability to kill it right away before it goes on a rampage.

The whole point of taking 10 BS4 meltaguns and putting them in a quasi-indestructable super fast vehicle is to pick one target and make it dead in or around turn 2, at the latest.

If you want to let something get close and kill it mid-game, then there are definitely cheaper ways to do it (like, for example, taking witchblades or taking dragons without the serpent and hiding them out of LOS or something).

There's not really a lot of point for spending the points to take a tool that's very good at what it does just to use it other than in the way it was intended. I mean, what do you really gain with your dragon's survivability if they don't kill anything in a timely manner?

As others have mentioned, the fact that they tend to die so fast is a compliment to their effectiveness when used to maximum effect.

U ask me why I should kill it after the big scary thing does the damage?Well because of the kill point and the psychological damage to the other player

A LOT of players start to mess around when they think they are winning, thats when you should strike and take out their "trusted" units.And next time they face u, they will be hiding their land raider and use it less effectively.


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Inquisitor_Syphonious wrote:

Wings of Purity wrote:they are amazing, but there is just so much more for them to do.Most transports wont survive eldar S6 fire power, and they could bring down trygons and nob bikers with ease.

I wanted to pick this up cuz I had fun with dragons again yesterday

They can have their uses like that, though ultimately their anti-tank potential is where they shine. They can easily destroy any tank in the game barring the monolith.

They cannot however, reliably deal with most other nasty units, like thunder terminators, or seer councils. They definitely bite it to anything with more than twelve~ish bodies.

Marine squads are even a stretch for ten of them if they're not vanilla.

Why would I spent my most powerful unit on marines?I would probably send them to fight terminators(5 or less) and take out MCs.
I take my dragons in 5s when its in higher point level games(1500+), but in 1000pt games(what I always play) I use a single squad of 10. Just because my opponent doesnt have enough fire power to wipe them out(if they do they will be blasted by frismx2, because they spent a whole turn getting no bullets in their faces)

Although I have to agree that they are great(best) tank hunters, they are powerful in 5s and in WS.


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And I guess our perspectives have a big difference. I mean how many land raiders do you see in 1000pt?Most mech players use transports, rhinoes that would spend the whole game fixing themselves while their brothers charge forward

But why not get the KP on the scary thing before the scary thing claims KP on you? Most armies would have a hard time taking down a tervigon turn 1 or 2, something which a wave serpent full of fire dragons would have a much easier time with than most other units in the game.

As for the "psychological" factor causing your opponent to play sloppily, well, I think someone else here already said it best:

Mafty wrote: about as good of advice as "hoping someone doesnt know WTF they are doing".

Silly tactics are silly

Wings of Purity wrote:U ask me why I should kill it after the big scary thing does the damage?Well because of the kill point and the psychological damage to the other player

A LOT of players start to mess around when they think they are winning, thats when you should strike and take out their "trusted" units.And next time they face u, they will be hiding their land raider and use it less effectively.


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Inquisitor_Syphonious wrote:

Wings of Purity wrote:they are amazing, but there is just so much more for them to do.Most transports wont survive eldar S6 fire power, and they could bring down trygons and nob bikers with ease.

I wanted to pick this up cuz I had fun with dragons again yesterday

They can have their uses like that, though ultimately their anti-tank potential is where they shine. They can easily destroy any tank in the game barring the monolith.

They cannot however, reliably deal with most other nasty units, like thunder terminators, or seer councils. They definitely bite it to anything with more than twelve~ish bodies.

Marine squads are even a stretch for ten of them if they're not vanilla.

1. Why would I spent my most powerful unit on marines?I would probably send them to fight terminators(5 or less) and take out MCs.
2. take my dragons in 5s when its in higher point level games(1500+), but in 1000pt games(what I always play) I use a single squad of 10. Just because my opponent doesnt have enough fire
power to wipe them out(if they do they will be blasted by frismx2, because they spent a whole turn getting no bullets in their faces)

3. Although I have to agree that they are great(best) tank hunters, they are powerful in 5s and in WS.


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4. And I guess our perspectives have a big difference. I mean how many land raiders do you see in 1000pt?Most mech players use transports, rhinoes that would spend the whole game fixing themselves while their brothers charge forward

1. Learn how to read please. MC's? Sure, though then they bite it after (possibly) killing something less expensive than them.
2. That comment is just being obtuse. If they don't have enough firepower to take them out, then you're playing a one-sided game. If you have three offensive units, and that is it, then you're already on the road to trouble.

3. Yes. Exactly how I take them.

4. That isn't perspective, and quite alot. So dragons and two prisms can take out that many rhinos on turn one while ignoring the rest of the SM force? Cool.

Screw it. I quit. The whole psychological factor non-sense is irking me. I can't argue with you.

Hmmm...I will play test a little and then think about it

What could you possibly play-test?

Play test suiciding dragons on the frist/second turn

A key point is that the fire dragons arent being thrown away for nothing. The idea is to remove the greatest threat in your opponents army, and to do it as soon as possible.

Dragons have an excellent chance at popping heavy armor, and if your opponent has heavy armor then its very lilkely to be the most dangerous part of his army. If you can kill this part of his army on the first or second turn before it has had a chance to do anything then this is obviously better then waiting until the last turn of the game.

If the dragons can survive the retribution on your opponents turn thats wonderful... but passing up a shot at a LR to try and keep 5 fire dragons alive is not exactly prime stategy.


Its that ratio of value that makes the dragons use so valuable. A unit of 80-96 points removes a vehicle of 250ish points which is often transporting an even more expensive unit. Less than a tenth of the points of the eldar army is used to remove a far larger chunk of their army, plus it slows down another chunk of their army.



Yes, it is possible to increase the dragon unit to give it greater surviveability. Adding a farseer, adding more dragons, adding an accompanying DA support squad...all of these would mean that the unit would be much tougher. Or instead one could spend those points on something else, perhaps a second (or third) unit of dragons. Once you are spending more than 100 more points to improve the one unit of dragons why not just get another unit?

There are some opponents who will not have a target for a "deathstar" unit of fire dragons. Against hordes or mid armor spam armies a large unit of dragons is just wasted. There is no worthwhile target for them and its going to be very difficult to keep them out of assault.



Sliggoth

In my LFGS I often face opponents with rhino spam/transport spam.I use fire dragons mostly on MCs and termies, or when those are not there, demon prince and HQ squads(or anything heavy on points).I do not expect them to live through the war, but taking 2 squads of them in serpents means that my opponent can't kill both units in one turn.

I agree with you Sliggoth(and everyone) that they are supposed to suicide for a greater good, but with a little bit of customizing in your army and some field tactics they still have a chance, isn't that good?

I think many of us will agree that eldar are no longer a competitive list. The SW have Thunderwolves which will bounce dragons. Dragons are okay versus mech now but I never see them winning games anymore. If I were to play eldar I would just wait until the next codex is released.

G

Black Blow Fly wrote:I think many of us will agree that eldar are no longer a competitive list. The SW have Thunderwolves which will bounce dragons. Dragons are okay versus mech now but I never see them winning games anymore. If I were to play eldar I would just wait until the next codex is released.

G

Back to trolling I see? Your post is so helpful to the topic at hand.

Thanks for that.

I agree with you Sliggoth(and everyone) that they are supposed to suicide for a greater good, but with a little bit of customizing in your army and some field tactics they still have a chance, isn't that good?

Yeah, it is good, though on the other hand, you can still have an efficient list, and take a small unit of dragons to harass the enemy deathstar by popping the transport, or by killing a few models if there are no transports.

I would much rather have a cheap unit to blow-up the enemies heaviest hitter, than to have to force your units to work into one portion of the enemy, and keep your army clumped together.

Im not trolling at all, Im telling like it is. Dragons are only good versus mech and expensive units they can ID. If you pop their transport early they are at an immediate loss. SW, IG & BA have many solutions to neuter them effectively. They were okay back in 4ed. That's it.

G

Fire dragons are the hardest hitters in the eldar army
And they are the cheapest

Black Blow Fly wrote:Im not trolling at all, Im telling like it is. Dragons are only good versus mech and expensive units they can ID. If you pop their transport early they are at an immediate loss. SW, IG & BA have many solutions to neuter them effectively. They were okay back in 4ed. That's it.

G

Yes. Dragons are good against mech (like... alot of armies out there) and expensive units they can ID (like... alot of deathstars out there...?).

SW don't always have an immediate solution, certain armies types do. Thunderwolves? Sure, though eldar have another trick up the sleeve, 80 points? Boo hoo.

IG vehicle squadrons hate fire dragons.

BA? Jump lists? Sure, you got me. Though BA dread lists, and BA predator/razor spam lists... bye.

They're still good in 5th ed, especially since alot of people switched to mech, and alot of instant-killable deathstars.

There is no such thing as an insta killable deathstar. Sure if you pick the matchups then you can say dragons are awesome. Show me one GT this year that eldar won, just one. I'm not knocking them although you probably see it that way.

G

Black Blow Fly wrote:There is no such thing as an insta killable deathstar. Sure if you pick the matchups then you can say dragons are awesome. Show me one GT this year that eldar won, just one. I'm not knocking them although you probably see it that way.

G

There are plenty of armies that didn't make it to the top of GT's, though those armies used to suck.

Eldar as a whole may not be effective as dual lash/mech guard/long fang wolves...

Though they can hold their own. One of the things still letting them be viable? Dragons.

If you pick match-ups you can say dragons are horrible, same story different title.

I've been playing Eldar for a while now. I take a unit of fire dragons in 95% of my games.
Almost every time they get out to pop a tank they die horribly, but if i can distract the enemy with an 80 point unit, then so be it.
My regular opponents know that its best to leave none alive as 2 days ago someone killed all but one, that lone firedragon, knowing hes pretty useless now, ran at a defiler and wrecked it. Now, thats a bit lucky, but consider if you left all 5 of them alive... Anyone playing me will know they really do have to kill those FD.

And thats a big part of the dragons utility.

Not only do they tend to kill the biggest target in your opponents army, they then also draw fire in the next turn. This means that in the turn that your opponent is trying to recover from losing his heavy armor/ MC he then has to devote 1-2 units to killing that 80-96 point thorn.

And thats why dragons are worth taking. They have one very sharp sting and then distract the next turn's incoming fire...or draw a cc unit out into the open where it can then be easily shot up.

Granted, the eldar army overall is no longer as competitive of a list as some of the newer ones...but its certainly not because of the fire dragons.

If the rest of the eldar codex was as useful as the dragons, eldar would be sweeping the tourneys.



Sliggoth

They do have meltabombs so if for some reason they whiff in the shooting phase they still have a chance to take out an armored target in the assault phase. I always thought that was kind of cool.

G

When the fire dragons lose their transport, they die.

Black Blow Fly wrote:They do have meltabombs so if for some reason they whiff in the shooting phase they still have a chance to take out an armored target in the assault phase. I always thought that was kind of cool.

G

It is a great feature, and is a direct supplement to melta-ranged firepower. If for some reason your 5 BS4 melta shots whiff (it does happen), as long as you were within 6" for the extra D6, you can charge in and give it a second shot. Hitting on 6's is lame, but you will often find targets that you can hit on 4's, making your FD absolutely devastating to heavy-AV.

All of that said, FD simply don't bring enough to an Eldar army to make it seriously competitive. Rhinos/Chimeras blocking shots on AV14 vehicles is a serious pain in the ass, there are quite a few simple tactics that can reduce the usefulness of FD.

Eldar are currently second-tier, unless you are meta-gaming. You can consider them top-second-tier overall, but the codex is just old. I didn't really see the trolling part of that statement, when made earlier by BBF (GBF, really). Expecting Eldar to outperform (more specifically, perform on par with newer codices, and ultimately be an example of a solid codex in 5th ed) the wave of new codices when playing in tournaments is just short-sighted IMO. If the same players that can do well with Eldar played a newer codex, their performance in that context would speak to the age of the Eldar codex, and the fact that the newer codices generally dominate tournaments.

I think the eldar codex now is pretty cool already

I agree that Eldar is a fun codex, and hope that none of my contribution discourages people from using it entirely. There is no problem playing whatever codex you like, so you can enjoy this game. None of that has any direct bearing on whether you choose to play Eldar or not, unless you plan on playing very competitively.

Eldar IS outdated though, it is simply not a matter of opinion at this point.

Fire Dragons, I've found, work best at killing isolated artillery, suiciding against heavy armor, or shooting multi wound t4 enemies (tyranid warriors, tau crisis suits, nobs, terminators, etc) Although the last is questionable as focus blast fire prisms often do that effectively as well.

Yes, they do Alright against MCs, but Eldar are one of the most effective spammers of s6 weapons. The reason we can function so well with only 2 or 4 suicide units as dedicated anti heavy armor, is because not much in the game can stand up to all the shurican cannon and scatter laser shots we can level against thier transports and tougher targets.

Most MCs are only t6 as well. Doom + s6 spam will force enough saves to scythe them down without bothering the dragons. Same with taking down transports such as rhinos and razor backs (except without doom).

At the end of the day, dragons purpose in life is to find a scary target, bring em down, and anything they do after that is just gravy and should not be counted on.

If you are playing against an army that you can immobilize with your scatter lasers- then yes, there is no need to send the dragons suiciding... but most of the time there will be land raiders to stop, and other jobs for them to do.

Wings of Purity wrote:When the fire dragons lose their transport, they die.

This is true for most units in a transport. Which is why Fire Dragons need to run ahead and pop landraiders. The unit in side now must walk accross the board. If the transport is CC Termies, you now can shoot them to pieces before they make it to your line. You are not normlally going to see a 5 man scout squad in a landraider. You see big expensive units. Sending an 80 point squad to destroy a 250 pt tank on turn turn is a huge investment in points. You spend 8% of your resources, and destoryed 25% of theirs. Also they now have to spend more resources to destroy your 8%. Kind of think that is a fair trade off.