Dragon Dice™ - DragonKin

The Dragonkin

Heavy Melee	Light Melee	Mount
Dragontroop	Dragonscout	Dragonfoal
Dragonhero	Dragonsentry	Dragonmount
Dragonchamp	Dragonspy	Dragonsteed
Dragonkin Champion

Introduction

Born from the essence of the dragon, these creatures are a magical race created to protect and help the races of Esfah. They have hides as thick as plate steel and can stop even the fiercest blow. However, they do have chinks in this natural armor. Every now and again a soft underbelly is exposed. Be wary though, this is not the case most of the time. If you are opposed by these magical foes, they can deal a lot of damage, as the mythical Dragonkin Champions strike fear in all that oppose them.

Dragonkin Rules

You may bring Dragonkin into a summoning pool equal to 1/3 of the total health of your army. Thus, if you created a 36pt. Army, you could bring 12pts of Dragonkin into the summoning pool.

Summon Dragonkin: 3 point spell, Add 1 health of your Dragonkin to the casting army. The color of magic determines the color of the Dragonkin summoned. Multiple castings increase the effect of target other units.

Dragonkin provide one automatic save for each health present at a terrain. Therefore, if you had 4 health of Dragonkin present at a terrain, they would provide 4 automatic save for that army.

Dragonkin never participate in a missile or magic action.

Dragonkin may not wield magic items or artifacts and do not count towards the one-to-one unit-to-item ratio.

Dragonkin may never go into the reserve or move from the terrain they are summoned to. If all other units leave a terrain, and there are only Dragonkin remaining. These units will dissipate and return to the summoning pool.

Dragonkin may not oppose a dragon that contains the same element as themselves. EX: A gold Dragonkin can not attack or provide automatic saves against a gold dragon attack.

Units

Unlike the other races of Esfah, the Dragonkin only have three different types of units. Mount, Heavy Melee, and Light Melee.

Mount units (Common Dragonfoal, Uncommon Dragonmount, and Rare Dragonsteed) provide extra maneuvers for those races lacking in this ability.

Heavy Melee (Common Dragontroop, Uncommon Dragohero, Rare Dragon Champ) provide an extra punch to deal massive damage to unsuspecting foes.

Light Melee (Common Dragonscout, Uncommon Dragonsentry, and Rare Dragonspy) provide a little bit of the other two. They give you some maneuvers and some melee. This allows these units to support both actions, but not as consistent as the other two.

The most powerful of all the Dragonkin, The Dragonkin Champions, these units have Special Action Icons on every face except the ID. They are mighty foes in melee, with smite and flame SAIs. They can provide 8 saves, 4 from their automatic saves and four from the fly or
ID. They also can help maneuver with their fly icon. I generally use at least one Dragonkin Champion in my armies. It is just great to have a four-point unit that brings fear to your opponents eyes.

Strategy/Construction

Here are some of the strategies that some people use with Dragonkin.

When constructing your army, you can use Dragonkin from different colors to provide diversity against dragons. Usually this approach is used when all common Dragonkin are brought to the summoning pool.

That way, if you have 3 points of magic, and nothing else to do with it. Then summon a Dragonkin to help the defense of this army.

The opposite approach is to take all the Dragonkin from the same color. This would be the case if you were using multiple races, then you would want to select Dragonkin with the color that matches all of you mages. EX: Player A has created a Frostwing (Blue and Black) and Feral (Blue and Gold) army, the common color between the two races is blue. Therefore, Player A might pick all of his Dragonkin to be blue.

Both of these strategies have merit, and generally it is up to the player in which one they use.

Selection of units

Generally, most players select the mount units to support their cavalry or mages to capture an 8th face.

These units provide very good maneuvers, which boosts the army’s ability to control the terrain.

But don’t forget about the other two types, they definitely have their spot. If you want to give some mages the ability to cause damage, then include the Heavy Melee units. This makes attacking mages difficult, since the counter attack will include Heavy Melee units that can deal large amounts of damage.

The last part is selection of unit rarities. I personally use a tiered approach to Dragonkin. I use 1 Dragonkin Champion, 1 Rare, 1 Uncommon, and 3 Commons. This allows the army to have the ability to promote Dragonkin from one rarity to another, which really comes into play when using a city 8th face.

Others like the all common approach, it generally provides more consistent results but not as much power as the Dragonkin champions.

You always want to bring in Dragonkin as soon as you can afford the magic. They bring protection and stability to mages. They also provide needed support against the massive multiple dragon attacks. Not only do Dragonkin provide automatic saves, but they also can be taken as casualties from the attack. These units can not be buried by normal damage and only cost 3 points of magic per health to bring back into the game.

Conclusion

The moral of this story is to summon dragon soon and often.

In larger point games like the Battlefest, I enjoy bringing all Dragonkin Champions. It is a true sight to behold, when you can summon all the champions into the game. Their ability to protect and deal damage is unmatched by any other Dragonkin unit. Not to mention the ability to move dragons of the same color, should the SFR logo (or TSR) show up.