# Yea or Nay- the Dragon Mage



## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Just looking for a few people's experiences of the Dragon Mages of Caledor. I really like the look of them and the reckless rule but they just look far far too fragile to me.

I was thinking about having this set up:

Dragon Mage- Lv2 wizard, silver wand, guardian pheonix (possibly golden crown).

That makes the dragon mage 420 (435) pts and ofc takes up 2 hero slots but while the sun dragon might survive quite a bit the mage on top is incredibly vulnerable to shooting/magic. A 5+ ward isnt going to save him from much while being effectively 3W might... but still a round of archers shooting could easily kill him.

I was thinking about sending him up a flank and using magic (and mebbe breath) to blast great holes into the enemy (like firing a burning head along the enemy lines) while abusing the reckless/silver wand combo to get 3 free PD a turn (3-5pool, 2own and 2-3reckless PD will be a nasty mess for the enemy to deal with), then charge into combat with flaming sword to break an enemies flank (terror plus both dragon and mage should be enough to at least win the fight.. if I can get a unit in the front then I should easily destroy them).
- I was planning on casting 2 damage spells then flaming sword, doubt anyone will dispel it and then I dont need to try to cast it again if I want to charge.. if they do happen to dispel it then I get a second chance in the turn I charge... hopefully I can get flaming sword of rhuin, burning head and fiery blast most games... not a fan of conflaguration of doom or wall of fire.


PS- bit of a query on teh 'Warrior Mage' rule: can I swap a randomly rolled spell for either the number 1 or number 2 fire spells or can I only swap for number 2 (Im assuming I certainly cant swap 2 rolled spells for numbers 1 and 2).


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## Tiberius (Dec 15, 2007)

You can swap a spell for either 1 or 2.
What would your Army points be. Myself I would perfer to use one with a 3000 point Army. However since I am currently in a Campaign, I may give it a go at 2000 points.


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

Dragon Mages are rather hard to use effectively. You're a decent price for a character mounted on a dragon, and said character happens to be a mage, but overall the model lacks durability. I've lost the entire model (mage and dragon) to a single round of wood elf shooting at long range, but that isn't supposed to happen all that often. The key to using a Dragon Mage is keeping them out of reach of anything that can hurt it.

It's funny how they can swap one of their spells for FSoR, since this is in no way a close-combat model. Toughness 3, 2 Wounds and no armor should never, ever be in combat if you want to keep it. The only thing you should be charging with that model is a flank/rear or a severely beat up unit that couldn't possibly hold against a dragon; i.e., a unit with less that 2 complete ranks left.

I was an asshole once and took a Dragon Mage in an 800 point game against a full-Goblin army. In my opinion, that's exactly the kind of situation the Dragon Mage was designed for.


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

On a coolness rating, it's definately a 10/10 though


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

Why not go ballz to the wallz and take 2? 

Make the rest of the list quick and hitty, so Chariots, Dragon Princes, Eagles and some backup shooting w Archers and a RBT or 2 and see what happens


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Well so far my army consists of *...*
Tomorrow I should have Tyrion
...
Friday I should hopefully have an army including a dragon- so mebbe 1 dragon mage but certainly not 2 for a long time.


I was going to make a list with 10 DPs 10 Ellyrians, 2 RBTs, 2 eagles and throw the dragon mage wide, 2 mages in archer units would provide a fire base (latter with the reavers if I can get some mounted mages).
Plan was to massively out manouver the enemy and try to make targets out of everything in my army: gotta kill reavers to get the mages, eagles so they can march, dragon because its evil and the DPs because they are game winning- just give them too much to deal with all at once (and hope their brain goes pop).


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Wll my dragon mage took the field today... against high elves who fielded another dragon mage.

Needless to say my dragon mage charged bravely accross the board, casting magic left and right (managing to do exactly nothing) and was then hit in the face by 10 archers who got a bit jammy with wound allocation to kill the mage in 1 go...
meanwhile I never did manage to get any hits allocated to the mage... with 3 bolt thrower hits and 25 bows only managing to do 4 wounds to the dragon (a brave unit of 7 SM got charged and then proceeded to kill both dragon and mage).

Thoughts for the day- dragon mages really are crap.. but they are so much fun that they'll probably always get used vs any army that lacks ranged firepower (damn, shame im the only local ogre player).


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