Dragon Dice™ - Firewalkers

The Firewalkers

Heavy Melee	Light Melee	Missile	Cavalry	Magic
Guardian	Explorer	Firestarter	Shadowchaser	Sunburst
Watcher	Adventurer	Firemaster	Nightsbane	Sunflare
Sentinel	Expeditioner	Firestormer	Daybringer	Ashbringer
Fireshadow	Genie	Gorgon	Phoenix	Salamander

Introduction

So you want to play with the Firewalkers but you're not quite sure what units to use or how to use them, well today is your lucky day…

Let’s start with taking a look at the race:

The Firewalker special ability:

Firewalking: During the reserve phase, Firewalkers can move from any Coastland or Flatland to another without going to the reserves first. If in the Swampland or Highland, they must first go to reserves.

I’m going to assume you know a little about Dragon Dice™ for this, so take a look at any new SAI and spells before reading this. The first thing that you will notice is that they are Red and Blue in color, being made up of Fire and Air. This provides them with some very powerful magic. Next, take a look at some of the dice and you will see that they are a “Jack-of-all-trades” kind of race, having their icon distribution spread out between Maneuvers, Melee, Missile, and Saves on all of their units.

Let’s look at a full set of Firewalker units, excluding monsters for now (see the race chart to compare all the races' icon distribution.) The Firewalkers have a total of 40 melee icons (not including SAIs or ID icons), which puts them near the bottom of all the races in melee damage. They have 34 missile icons, which puts them near the top of raw missile fire. 27 magic icons tie them with the Amazons and put them ahead of all other races. They have a lot of maneuver icons with 37; again they are near the top. Lastly, saves come in almost dead last with only 18 icons slightly ahead of the Coral Elves and Lava Elves.

So now we are ready to peek at their racial abilities and see how they might help us out or hurt us. Terrain Flight? What’s that? Well, during the reserve phase, they can “fly” from any Air terrain (one with the blue aspect) to any terrain in play without going through the reserves first. We may want to include a terrain with blue in it in our setup.

The Units

Ok, now we know what kind of race they are… Red and Blue, “Jack-of-all-trades”, good at missile and magic, Terrain Flight, but what about the units? We’ll start with the common units:

Heavy – Guardian [save, maneuver, missile, melee, melee x2] We can already see that this unit is a little weak in melee when compared to other heavy common units but we knew that from their racial numbers. The maneuver icon is on a few other heavy commons and so is the missile, but none have both.

Light – Explorer [missile, maneuver x2, save, melee, melee] Again weak melee but otherwise it is almost the standard light common unit. However with both maneuver icons on the same face this gives an almost all or nothing effect instead of the more traditional distribution of 1 icon per face.

Missile – Firestarter [save, melee, maneuver, missile, missile x2] Just like the heavy common unit only switching the melee and missile icons. May not give you a knockout punch but will survive when other units die.

Cavalry – Shadowchaser [maneuver, maneuver, save, missile, melee x2] Strange, while the race as a whole has a lot of maneuver icons the cavalry units themselves don’t seem to have that many. This is the slowest of them all folks plus they can’t defend or fight as well as some of the other cavalry units. I wouldn’t use this unit unless I just had to.

Magic – Sunburst [magic, magic, magic, magic, maneuver x2] What? Yes, you saw it correctly the first time. Four magic faces mean you will get magic most of the time you roll this die and the rest of the time you will get maneuvers. The only problem is there are no save icons at all.

On most races the common units give you the best average of results per roll, mainly because you have a chance to get more ID icons, which give you the results you need. However on the Firewalkers the uncommon units are just a bit better. Take a look, moving on to the uncommon units:

Heavy – Watcher [save x2, maneuver x2, missile x2, melee x3, melee x3] Just like his smaller brethren only with slightly more icons, although this unit does gain a slight melee edge above the common unit.

Light – Adventurer [missile x3, maneuver x3, save, melee x2, melee x2] Again all the maneuver icons are on just one face and this unit doesn’t gain a save. This may cause problems so I would most likely not use it.

Missile – Firemaster [melee x2, save x2, maneuver x2, missile x3, missile x3] A very good unit. It can save, melee, and maneuver better than any other missile unit of its size unfortunately it loses some missile power for this. Still a very good unit and often overlooked.

Cavalry – Nightsbane [maneuver x2, maneuver x2, save x2, melee x3, missile x3] Ugggh! This has to be one of the worse units in the game. Can’t do anything well, and it doesn’t give much help to other units at the same time. Hide these in the bottom of your dice bag.

Magic – Sunflare [magic x2, magic x2, magic x2, magic x2, maneuver x3] Wow!!! This units is better than two common magic units because it gives you one extra magic icon while losing only a maneuver for it. Choose these before commons or rares.

Ok, we’re moving on to the big guns, the Rare units but these poor saps are a tad weak:

Heavy – Sentinel [save x3, missile x3, maneuver x3, melee x3, Smite x4] Same as before only you gain the Smite icon. This is not a good melee fighter for the Firewalkers. Just remember that it is still more of a support unit than a frontline fighter and you will be ok.

Light – Expeditioner [maneuver x3, missile x3, melee x3, melee x3, Counter x4] The best melee unit is right here and it can move around plus it gives you some of the best saves. Not Bad, still the missile faces can hurt you if you're not going to use them.

Missile – Firestormer [save x2, maneuver x3, melee x3, missile x4, Bullseye x4] Hmmmm, the uncommon unit gives you better missile power, the same saves, and better maneuvers per health. Unless you just have to have the Bullseye I would skip this unit.

Cavalry – Daybringer [save x2, Fly x4, maneuver x2, missile x4, melee x4] The only reason to bring this unit into play is because it has the most saves of all Firewalker d6, still it is not enough for me.

Magic – Ashbringer [magic x3, magic x3, magic x3, Cantrip x3, maneuver x4] Good unit but the uncommon magic unit is still better. You may want one just for the Cantrip but otherwise stick to the smaller guys.

That’s it for the d6. So what did we learn? For the most part the uncommon units are the best units for the Firewalkers. I repeat, the UNCOMMON units are the best units, for the most part. Remember this as we move on to the monsters.

The Monsters, giant 4-health units:

Fireshadow [Cantrip, Smite, Fly, Fly, Create Fireminions, Create Fireminions, Melee, Melee, Counter] This is the best unit in the game, Hands down but it has problems… it has magic icons so it will count against your magic total and it is worth 4-health making it a target for Lightning Strikes. Still, it can give you what you need when you need it. Having one of these bad boys with your magic units can keep most armies away from them. Be careful, the balance between to many Fireshadow monsters and not enough is a fine line. To many and you cannot cast enough magic… not enough and they cannot give you any support.

Genie [Cantrip, Fire Cloud, melee, melee, save, save, magic, Galeforce, Firewalking] Not a bad unit but for what it costs you (4-health of magic units) and an SAI that may not be used at all (Galeforce) this unit may not be the best one to pick.

Gorgon [save, save, Flame, Flame, maneuver, maneuver, maneuver, maneuver, maneuver] If you need some extra maneuver icons this is the unit for you to use. He can give a little bit of melee support and a couple of saves to go along with quick feet.

Phoenix [Fly, Fly, Rise from the Ashes, Rise from the Ashes, Seize, Seize, save, save, Smite] The second best unit in the game. The Firewalkers need saves and this is the unit to give it to them. Putting one of these in any army cannot hurt you. Seize is a great SAI, sort of like a Smite during missile.

Salamander [Cantrip, missile, save, save, Smite, magic, melee, melee, melee] Another generic unit that cannot help you much.

The Spells:

Spells, spells, spells (I will leave it up to you to read the spell descriptions.) We are going to look at only the Firewalker racial spells since you should know the basic spell list already:

RED:

3 Firebolt – Even with the increase to 3 points this spell rocks. Pick off things that cannot come back easily. Most of the time, this will be an uncommon unit, especially when attacking Feral armies.

3 Flashfire – A nice spell that I don’t see used a lot but it allows you to reroll a unit ‘after’ you see what they rolled. If you bring in units with SAIs then use this spell.

3 Elemental Blast – Good for removing non-red spells from play. Destroy that pesky Open Grave before you melee or missile attack, blast away a Wind Walk so you can out maneuver someone, etc.

BLUE:

3 Dust Devil – Taking missile damage from another terrain? Dust Devil it…

3 Elemental Blast – Remove non-blue spells from play, see the above red spell with same name.

5 Mirage – A good way to reduce the amount of units at a terrain since a lot of players bring all common armies; use this just before a missile attack or maneuver roll. Watch out though because you just sent some units to reserves they could come attack you or cast magic to support another army.

Army Construction

Ok we have looked at the race as a whole and we have taken a peek at the units along with the spells now let’s look at some of the best army types we can make up with them (note: this may include units from other races so you may need to look at them also):

One of my favorite armies of all time… I designed this to kill the Goblin / Swamp Stalker common armies that were around a few years ago. Besides I didn’t like picking up all those dice when I wanted to roll.

4 Fireshadows – these will be your magic units for this army
2 Trolls – to bring back your dead
2 Swamp Giants – because you're going to be in the swamps
4 commons – any units that you think you may need. I used Swamp Stalkers.

You can trade the Swamp Giants for more Trolls, Phoenixes, or Coral Giants depending on your style of play and what you think you might be facing. As you can see this uses the best of all the Firewalker units, the Fireshadow, as its main component but we miss out on other units.

You can still roll for magic with this army and getting that Cantrip can give you a Wind Walk or Flashfire when you really need it. The most important thing to remember with this army is ATTACK all the time. Never give them a chance to breathe because if you get into a long pitched battle the normal magic-based army is going to eat you for lunch unless you get lucky.

The massive magic army… used by several people now:

8 Sunflares – can you say ‘Firebolts and Dancing Lights?’
2 Theurgists – can you say ‘Earthen Armor?’
1 Mammoth Rider – so you can path at the end of a game.
1 Lizard Rider – so you can promote if the Mammoth Rider dies.
12 Pony Riders – Lots of maneuvers.
1 Red speed Slipper – that the Mammoth Rider can carry when it Path’s.

While not quite half Firewalkers you are again using some of their best units, in this case, magic. Firebolts and/or Lightning Strikes and Dancing Lights will be one of the keys to victory. Use Earthen Armor to keep your Sunflares in play and bury anything and everything with Dust to Dust. When it gets close don’t forget that you can Path a Mammoth Rider, whose SAI will not be affected by spells, and a Speed Slipper for the two 8^th face win. You can put in a Fireshadow for more defense and a bit of melee and you could trade the Dwarves for Coral Elves but you lose the Earthen Armor protection. Frostwings can work also since they can cast Open Grave. Several people swap out the Dwarf cavalry for another race: Feral, Lava Elf, Swamp Stalkers, Scalders, even Coral Elves can be put to use.

Magic and missiles anyone?

1 Fireshadow – for protection.
6 Sunflares – so you can throw some magic around.
2 Bronze Targes (red or blue) – again, for protection.
1 Phoenix – Seize and saves.
6 Firemasters – shoot, shoot, shoot.
2 Trueflyers (red or blue) – just to give a bit of punch to your missiles.

We are using all Firewalkers here so keep the battle ranges far with this army. I would bring in Coastland Towers since many armies get no benefit with this terrain. If an army comes to attack you take your shot at it and fly to another terrain, preferably one in missile range. Don’t forget your Flashfire spells so you can reroll dice again to get better results. Your only trouble is when you start to lose units; they will be hard to bring back into play, so bring in your Dragonkin as soon as possible. You can mix in some other missile races or magic but you will be much more tied to terrain than with this army.

Death from above…

4 Fireshadows
2 Speed Slippers (red or blue)
4 Phoenixes
1 Flicker Foil (red or blue)
1 Shadowchaser – yep, pull one out from the bottom of the dice bag and let it die.

As you can see this army needs to take the battle to the other player. Don’t wait just fly over there and attack. If you get the terrain into missile range then go ahead and take some shots, with Seize and Create Fireminions you can do a lot of missile damage. You really want to get into melee so that your Fireshadows can pound away on their army. Watch out for the charge attack. ALWAYS take the Phoenix as damage first since you have a chance to bring it back to life and it gets another if they try to bury it. Another Death from Above army, which can only be played during a Battlefest format, is an ALL Firewalker magic army; so named because they call death from the very skies with Firebolts and Lightning Strikes. This is a great army to play and lots of fun. REMEMBER that the Sunflare (uncommon) unit is the best.

Lastly there is the Mish-Mash army:

7 Guardians
7 Explorers
7 Firestarters
7 Shadowchasers
8 Sunbursts

You should be able to roll fairly well for anything you need. Get everyone together in one big army as fast as possible. Your best bet is to keep it in missile range and pick units off, moving it into magic if you can. Once you get an 8^th face, hit them with magic and missiles non-stop. Try using your racial ability to get a second 8^th face. Move a single unit to another terrain, next turn pump up the Wind Walks. It will be tough going but it is a fun little army. This is not an army you want to tweak since your strength lies in the fact that you cannot do anything great but everything well.

Well that’s my take on the Firewalkers as a whole; they can be fun to play with and if used correctly, very deadly. So take care, have fun, and play Dragon Dice™…