A friend and I played scenario 65, the first with the red dragon, and I posted the first part of the battle report on my blog. It contains my strategy for using the red dragon, and despite losing 6-5, I still think it was a good one.  The problem was with my game play with the other units.

I hope to post the remainder of the battle report in the next few days. As I do so, I will add to this thread. I would like to hear some strategies of others on how they successfully use dragons and/or defend against them.

Dale

 I finished up the battle report and posted it on my blog, along with my post-trauma analysis. 

I look forward to trying the dragons again. I played Joe Fling last night and he stomped with with the Wyvern, and he played essentially the same strategy, although not so terrain oriented as mine. (And no, I won't be writing that one up!)

Dale

 Thanks to Brent for pointing out the slight error I made with the dragon rules.  Hey, it only helps me get better.

A flying wood wyvern can't land in the trees?

I don't know how many times I've read the flight rules, and it is there in plain English, but I guess my brain refused to accept that.  I had always had a blind eye to the "and terrain."  I always assumed empty hex just meant one that wasn't occupied, just like the normal rule would be.  Does this mean a player has to announce when the dragon is flying as opposed to just crawling around? ;)  I don't get this restriction, anyone (please, FFG, no official responses, okay?) want to help me understand the reasoning for this rule?

toddrew said:

The only thing I can guess is that it makes them too powerful; they can grab strategically important terrain too quickly. If it were allowed, I think the strategy I outlined is pretty sound. On that board especially, the ability to hop between woods and hilltops, aerial spraying the troops below, while limiting the number of dice units can attack you at is pretty ideal. It allows you to land in the middle of troops and limit their ability to get rid of you.

Just guessing.

Possibly the reasoning, but if so, I don't like it ;)  Attacking dragons out in the open is foolhardy enough unless aided by some powerful lore.  I haven't taken the time to run the odds, but it has to be around 5% chance that a 4d roll can take out a dragon .  Dragons are already "too powerful", but that is exactly what they are supposed to be.

 Almost killed the Red dragon once with the Lore card Terrified, I think the name is. Rolled two Flag/Lore (22% chance) and it had to retreat six hexes. Could not retreat for three of them, so I got three hits/two critical.  Could not pull off the kill though (31%).  It had my opponent sweating though.

As an aside, I generally ignore the dragon as much as possible and just try to play my own game. Where I will deviate from that is when I have weapons or Lore that force retreats. Given the long retreats of the dragons, if you stack enough of them up you could get a really powerful critical roll. So, I've used Bagpipers with Darken the Sky (and Take Aim or Eagle Eye should also work well) or the Terrified Lore card. As each additional "hit" adds three hits and converts to two or three critical rolls, it seems like the most probably way to attack them.

I laugh at the thought that you would drive off a dragon with a dwarf playing the bagpipes. Would have made a hell of a story if it had worked when I tried it three times (twice with Darken the Skies) against Joe Fling...

Dale