SFR, Inc.

[dburkley]

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. These automatic saves are an additive dice modifier and cannot be doubled by eighth face or minor terrain effects. They are only applied if the Dragonkin are rolled.
Saves generated by a Dragonkin’s ID icon are in addition to the Dragonkin’s automatic saves. However, the saves generated by the ID icon are counted with the rest of the army’s save results; hence dice modifiers can affect them.
Example: An army containing a common and uncommon Dragonkin rolls for saves. The army is under the affect of a Palsy spell. The common Dragonkin rolls a melee icon, the uncommon Dragonkin rolls its ID icon and none of the other units roll any saves. The total number of saves generated at this point is 2 (from the uncommon Dragonkin’s ID icon). The effect of the Palsy spell is applied, reducing the save results to 1. Then the automatic saves from the common and uncommon Dragonkin are added, bringing the army’s final save result total to 4.
When killed Dragonkin units do not go to the Dead Unit Area as normal. Instead they are returned to the summoning pool from which they came. However, Dragonkin taken as casualties from a Sneak Attack, or dragon’s or Dragonkin’s breath effect are immediately buried; therefore they do not return to the summoning pool. Since dragonkin return to the summoning pool when killed, any effect that is a “kill and bury”, simply returns them to the summoning pool without any chance of burial.
Dragonkin cannot roll for 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 cannot roll when the army is attacked by an Ivory dragon or a dragon that contains the same element as themselves. Example: A gold Dragonkin can not attack or provide automatic saves against a gold dragon attack, any of the gold hybrid dragon attacks, a White dragon, or an Ivory dragon attack - but may be taken as casualties (and buried if taken as casualties for a breath 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 Breath SAIs. They can provide up to 8 saves, 4 from their automatic saves and four from the Fly SAI or ID. They also can help maneuver with their Fly SAI.

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. Example: 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. Some favor the use of a tiered approach to Dragonkin, such as 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 terrain die with 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 (but are buried if taken as casualties for a breath 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.

Dragonkin SAIs
Belly: During any roll, the Dragonkin unit loses its automatic save(s).
Breath (Dragonkin Champion): During a melee attack, attacking player chooses four health-worth of units in the defending army to be killed with no save possible.
Breath (Rare Dragonkin): During a melee attack, targeted player chooses three health-worth of units in the defending army to be killed with no save possible.
Fly: During any roll, each Fly result generates one maneuver or one save result.
SFR/TSR Logo (Dragonkin Champion): During any action or non-maneuver avoidance roll, may move a summoned dragon with the same color as the Dragonkin Champion from any terrain to any other terrain. A player may move a dragon that is currently controlled by a Dragonlord or Dragonmaster. In this case, the dragon becomes untamed and must be moved to a different terrain than the one the dragon is currently located. During a save roll against an individual-targeting effect, the SFR/TSR logo counts as four saves.
Smite: During a melee attack, each Smite result immediately inflicts one point of damage on the defending army or unit; no saves (including those provided by spells) can stop this damage. During a dragon attack or melee avoidance roll, Smite generates melee results.

Conclusion
The moral of this story is to summon dragonkin soon and often. In larger point games like the Battlefest, expect to see some Dragonkin Champions. 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 (including a hybrid), should the SFR logo (or TSR) show up.

(Edited by dburkley, 11-09-2008.)
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Daniel Burkley
US National Champion (DEXCON 2007, 2009, 2010)
World Champion (GENCON 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014)
Battlefest Champion: DEXCON 2008, 2011, GENCON 2009, 2010 (co-champion), 2011, 2017)
"No Magicians": GENCON 2008
"Single Race": DEXCON 2008, GENCON 2010, 2011, 2014 (co-champion), 2017

[Raven Bloodeyes]

[piMaster]

Also, a gold dragonkin cannot be rolled when the army is attacked by a white dragon.

Dragonkin are buried when taken as casualities for dragon breath. Other types of dragon damage only kill them.
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"Everything Brad said is correct." - Chuck Pint

[dburkley]

Edited to capture corrections noted.
_________________
Daniel Burkley
US National Champion (DEXCON 2007, 2009, 2010)
World Champion (GENCON 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014)
Battlefest Champion: DEXCON 2008, 2011, GENCON 2009, 2010 (co-champion), 2011, 2017)
"No Magicians": GENCON 2008
"Single Race": DEXCON 2008, GENCON 2010, 2011, 2014 (co-champion), 2017