# Versus... Dragons (and other Monstrous Flying Creatures) (7th)



## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

Hi all,

Continuing with the Fantasy Versus... series, next on the list is Dragons (and other Monstrous Flying Creatures) (suggested by maddermax). If you want to add your suggestions as to who Fantasy Versus should deal with next, go here for the general thread.

So, Dragons (and other Monstrous Flying Creatures), how do you combat these winged nuisances? Though each dragon has it's specific associated problems, the combination of a very powerful monstrous creature that can fly AND more often than not a powerful character along for the ride is a potential headache for any general.

When faced with a dragon what is your best anti-dragon defence? Magic? Cannons? Another flyer? How do you plan when you know you will be facing a dragon?


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## Green Knight (Feb 25, 2008)

What you need is cannons, and unbrakeable unit. 

The unbrakeable unit to keep the monster hold up for the rest of the game, the best unit for this is zombies as you can keep them toped up. 

Cannons to bast the hell out of the monster

As well as this it has only has a 45 degree arc of site, so use this to your advantage


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## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

Well my approach with Orcs and Gobbos is to snipe them with Bolt Chukkas (depending upon their toughness and whatnot), and/or try and mob them with large units, preferably led by characters who are capable of dealing out some pain. Though it has to be said, I don't face them often and when I do I tend to get a bit of a mauling from them...


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## Blackhiker (Dec 28, 2007)

The best method of fighting them that I have seen in use was magic and cannons attacking and a full unit to hold it in place for a while


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## Snorri O'dubhda (May 14, 2008)

Best thing against dragons and monsers is a large block of infantry, let it charge in and they tend not to be able to cause enough wounds to beat your standard combat res. and watch it run away from your unit. have this backed up with lots of guns to tempt it in to combat early and force mistakes.
But also a cannon to the face is always good too.


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## Amra_the_lion (May 26, 2008)

cannon, popemobile, silly powerful magic weapons. Vampire count static res.


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## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

I saw a rather interesting tactic employed the other day by a Dwarf player, he had a character in a big block of infantry that had a rune of something or other that forced his opponents dragon to charge. The look on the DE players face was quite amusing


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Dwarf Lord - MRo Smiting, Ro Might, MRo Gromril, and Ro Furnace.

D6 Wounds, 2+ to Wound the bugger, 1+ Armour Save, Immune to Flaming Attacks. 

Shove it in the Hammerers, Stubborn, LD 10, lead by Lord - BSB with Ro Courage, MRo Stromni Redbeard, either Ro Battle, or Ro Slowness. Unit standard should have Ro Stoicism or 3 Ro Sanctuary.

Immune to nasty magic - Expensive killy lord on hero - doesn't need any more so has support from wizards. 3 Mr, 4+ AS, T4, should be able to save against magic and nasty Pit of shades. =D


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## kungfoomasta (May 8, 2008)

my current strategy is either to ignore it.(worked out pretty good actually.) or charge with heavy cavlry or great weapons. dragons only reach toughness 7 right?with a spporting character and magig before hand to weaken it seems to work for me. cannons and bolt throwers are great options if you have them.(Damn you VC and no warmachines!!!) another already mentioned strategy is to bog it down with usless things like zombies and finish it later after you have killed all the mages:victory:


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## edd_thereaper (Oct 21, 2008)

i play empire and my tactic is usually to swap out something for the orb of thunder(which is a bound power spell and makes all flying creatures move along the ground at their standard rate in the movement phase) and blast them to bits with war machines and then finally bind them up with a block of thirty flagellants :biggrin:


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

With Dragons though, they have Basic Movement 6, and this is still a problem as the Dragon will still be charging on Turn 2.

30 Flagellants though is an excellent Tar Pit, but you don't have a Lord on Dragon to send into a Tarpit - a Dragon can effectively choose when and where it will charge.


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## Gharof von Carstein (May 19, 2008)

the problem i think is ussually not just the dragon but its rider. dragons themselves can be tough but have almost no saves (cept for the scaly skin saves which are mostly 4+). (in case of karl franz, ignore him and go for the dragon itself) targeting monsterous mounts is totally legal and very usefull! zombie dragons are cake to handle, if you ignore the vamp and just go for the rotting carcass hes riding.


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## Dafistofmork (Jan 9, 2009)

I recently went aganist a dark elf army with dark dragon, and deployd on one half in a U shape (convex i thing its called) with alternate shooty and combaty units. one flank was anchored by the board edge, the other by a wood and an oathstone Ironbreaker unit.
the dragon tried to come round the back, got hit by a cannon, organ gun, bolt thower and 10 thunderers. dragon died, lord left with 1 wound. His lord then charged my quarrlers which had turned around, and lost his final wound from stand and shoot. I was very lucky with that, but it worked.


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## whirlwindofdecay (Mar 13, 2009)

most dragon users like to fly past or to the sides so it can avoid charges and pick its own charges, if i see one of them i keep a rank and file unit about 6" behind the other ones so it cant get around or to the sides without taking a charge, i also like to do it to scare march blockers.


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## Vorag of Strigos (Feb 25, 2009)

I once had to engage a riderless Wyvern who rolled a 6 on the fallen rider chart his breath attack was annoying when aimed at my black coach, though it fell seconds later from a gaze of Nagash directly exclusively at him, despite a poor roll of 7 about 4 wounds were dealt and finished it off, from a 2D6 S4 hit potential I find magics and artillary effective against Flying monstrous mounts such as dragons, if not wight blades almost always do the trick, especially black knights armed with Lances and sheilds, charging with barding they can be pretty effective against anything, except empire steam engines, Blood thirsters with the S10 demonic gifts and brettonia grail knight regiments.

Zombie dragons however, are difficult to kill, especially if it has a vampire lord mounted on it, who can simply raise it again if slain, thanks to an obvious technicality in the Summon Undead Horde spell, I have observed several battles where a Zombie dragon and Vampire lord can both hold their own even against a Skaven warpfire thrower and regiment of clanrats, in a rare case, its best to kill the rider first, then deal with the mount later, (its breath attack has a -3 armour save modifying and can be potentially fatal to entire regiments)


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

At the end of the day flying monsters are usually expensive and unless you are playing 3000 pts plus they are taking a lord choice out of effective ld range making the opponents army more likely to run.
My usual tactic depends on which army I'm using or facing: If I'm against a low ld army then I will tarpit it and send as much as my army into combat to try and force as many ld tests as possible. Against high ld or really combat based army like chaos I'll target the flyer with every thing available leaving my army with points superiority hopefully helping me to then hit the rest of his army with overwhelming force.


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## Dafistofmork (Jan 9, 2009)

can a dragon facing the front of a unit declare a charge, then fly over and into the rear of said unit? if it had 360 degree line of sight i would say yes maybe, but what about other flyers?


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## newsun (Oct 6, 2008)

If your in someone's frontal arc, you must charge to the front.


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## Zorenthewise (Aug 7, 2008)

I fight regularly against a HE who fields multiple dragons and uses them as a single flank attack. It is an amazing tactic, but I found concentrated cannon/bolt thrower with RoPenetration were able to take them out fairly easy, especially if they can be slowed down at all. If you have anything that can keep them grounded, like a Dwarf Anvil of Doom, use it!


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Havent faced any dragons yet.. but I know and loathe many a MC. When they are big and nasty I like them most (vargulfs I hate- ogres have no flaming attacks, it moves too fast and I dont have the SCR to take wounds).
The only "flying" MC Ive faced was a Tzeentch greater daemon that could move 20" a turn though couldnt fly (though he was backed up by 2 flying characters)... I dealt with this pretty easily- the unit cost ~1100pts in 2-2.5k games so I simply put a unit out on teh flank to attract its attention (its weird how people cant ignore a unit of irnon guts running inot their flank)... my opponent sent his ~1100pts at a 144pt irongut unit with support from 2 leadbelchers (how incidently just kept running around the greater daemon and managed to kill the other 2 characters.... both in combat DOH).

If I face an actual dragon I think I have to do 1 of 3 things: pick up my ogres and throw them at my opponent till he takes the nasty dragon away, get my opponent to move it out of the way (with a nice juicy sacrificial unit) and then run my army forward like the flames of hell are on my heels or just pray a tyrant with the tenderiser gets jammy enouth to kill the damn thing in 1 turn before he gets munched in return (though a unit of maneaters/toothcracker would help me from loosing the fight if that should happen).


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