# Dragon Mages And 8th Edition....



## Xabre (Dec 20, 2006)

So one of the defining reasons that I decided to buy High Elves and start that army was when the new Dragons came out, and the new 7E codex. Having access to a Dragon in 1k, 1500... not to mention having TWO dragons in 2k was a massive thing for me.

Now I don't have the 8E book yet, but as far as I can tell, that's totally impossible now, right? Appx'ing the points, I need 700 points for two Dragon Mages, assuming maybe a level 2 upgrade or something like that. Therefore I can't run both in less than 2500, right? Nor could I use one in less than 1250 (not that I would in smaller realistically, but...)

A little help would be greatly appreciated. Do I now have a bunch of dragons that are no better than paperweights?


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

If you're so inclined, it should be possible for you to run both a Lord and a Hero on a dragon.


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## Starbuck (Apr 6, 2010)

The Dragon takes up a hero slot though and costs like 350pts


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## Blue Liger (Apr 25, 2008)

Hero slots don't exist in 8th it's 25% on lords and 25% on heroes max, as said in 2500 you can run 2 dragons one high level mage on one in the lords and a noble on one for heroes, the main thing percentages have done is stopped HE players runnin 2- 3 in low point games though you still have stupid broken rules in CC


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## Xabre (Dec 20, 2006)

So basically what people are saying is that I'm SoL. If I want two dragons the best I can do is an Archmage and a Dragon Mage, because I won't have enough Hero allowance until 2500 for two Dragon Mages.

(For those that dont seem to know, and it seems like 2/3 of who responded, Dragon Mages are Heroes that get the weakest dragon... therefore they're the only hero in the game that could have a dragon. Which means JACK now that the rules have changed.)

I assume that the Mounts are considered part of the cost of the Hero, and therefore the dragon does take up some of the alotment? In which case the other model I had, which was a Prince kitted out ala Caledor would cost me so many points he'd also be useless before around 3k points, rather than just 'one lord slot'.


.... Of course, since they farked with the Fire Spells and changed Sword of Rhuin, Dragon mages aren't all that impressive anyway. Could two of them even both have that spell?


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

In a 2000 pt game you can spend 500pts on a lord with dragon and 500pts on a hero with dragon, That should be enough to get the 2 dragons you want (although I've not got the book to hand.)
You'll probably be light on troops though but I suppose that's to be expected in a 2 dragon army.
As far as I know you can't repeat the same spell twice.


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## Xabre (Dec 20, 2006)

Yeah, it wasn't just the 2 dragons that was intresting. It was that 2 dragon mages got them on the table fairly cheaply. At 3-350 pts per Dragon, you could have 2 using your 4 Hero/lord slots in the old system and still have plenty of room for the rest of your army. Under the new rules you'd have to field a Lord as one of them, which instantly boosts the cost by a few hundred points higher...


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## Creon (Mar 5, 2009)

Yes, it's difficult to make a Dragon Heavy HE army now. For your theory you need 2800 points to field those two. Though they recommend 3k as a base for games now.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Xabre said:


> .... Of course, since they farked with the Fire Spells and changed Sword of Rhuin, Dragon mages aren't all that impressive anyway. Could two of them even both have that spell?


I believe there is something in the rulebook, that if they buy, or always have a spell, they can have duplicates. Is it so for Dragon Mages? Still, count your blessings, since you can get your heroes on dragons. Some of us don't have the same option. Dark Elf heroes for example, only really get Manticores, and they're kinda sucky beyond belief.


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## Creon (Mar 5, 2009)

If you always have a spell, or it's purchased, or anything that doesn't involve random rolls on the spell list, it can be duplicated. The Signature spell in each lore can be duplicated. That is all.


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## Xabre (Dec 20, 2006)

Masked Jackal said:


> I believe there is something in the rulebook, that if they buy, or always have a spell, they can have duplicates. Is it so for Dragon Mages? Still, count your blessings, since you can get your heroes on dragons. Some of us don't have the same option. Dark Elf heroes for example, only really get Manticores, and they're kinda sucky beyond belief.


the only one we can have at hero level is Dragon Mage of Caledor. However, because of the rules that exists now and the 25% point issue, it couldn't be played beneath about 1400 or so. It was nice to be able to field a dragon like that at small points, because it would be unexpected, but the real strength, i felt, was having 2 on the field at 2k, when no one else could have anything that impressive.


Creon: 3k is the recommended minimum now? Really?


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

I ran a 500 pt list with a dragon before, surprising fun. You could get 2 dragons at 2000 but with the changes to leadership and stubborn units you may be better using 1 max anyway. especially with changes to breath weapons and terror

You could run a prince on a griffon for a similar fightyness for alot less points


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## Durzod (Nov 24, 2009)

As far as I remember, the rules for dragon mages state that they can always drop for Flaming Sword. So if you have multiple dragon mages, they can all have the flaming sword.


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## Styro-J (Jan 20, 2009)

Don't know why you would though, the old Flaming Sword was much more impressive.

Here's my question, since every dragon takes up a "Hero Slot" which doesn't exist anymore, does the points for one as a mount for a Prince count as Hero points or Lord points?


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

The faq on gw website say that you ignore that bit of the rules now.
A dragon mage just counts as x amount of points from the hero section as points are the only limits to hero's not slots.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm perfectly happy to kiss goodbye to double-dragons at 1500-2000pts. I'm not sure exactly why they were allowed it in the first place... Dragons are only some of the most rare and hard-to-train creatures in the entirity of the Old World... why would you expect to see them in anything less than 3k points in the first place?

And besides, you now have the best infantry in the entire game bar none, so the dragons are really pretty immaterial. :biggrin:

I know it's not exactly what you wanted to hear, but really, I don't see many games happening at sub-2k points levels these days anyway, I played 4 games of 2k points last Saturday and the fastest took 30 minutes. The longest took an hour. I expect 3k battles to take the same amount of time as 2k ones did in the previous edition. And the double/triple dragons becomes much more viable in 3k games.


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## rodmillard (Mar 23, 2010)

Nothing in the FAQ about flaming sword (perhaps there should be), but I would play it as FSoR is the signature spell for dragon mages, normal fire mages use the default. Not that you'd want to take a 2nd fire mage anyway, given the other lores (unless you're running double dragon mage, which means 3K plus).


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## Blue Liger (Apr 25, 2008)

I think the idea behind limiting dragons was to show you how rare they are in exsistance, yes HE have more of them but it doen't mean they have 1000 dragons to say the Dark Elves 1, on top of this it also as we all know encourages using more block troops which before HE didn't do at all


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