Better Know a Pretender: The Green Dragon

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by WingedDog

Don’t miss our special offer: let your Dragon out expanding without awe, collect all possible afflictions and get a free title ‘Dragon of thousand wounds’.

Seriously, I have seen in several MP games aweless Dragons of my opponents been killed by independents, or had mass afflictions after expansion stage. Also I had personal negative experience: in YARG game I used Blue Dragon with dom7. On turn 7 or so he had received a lucky hit from militia troop and ‘Disease’ affliction was successfully added to his already present ‘Limp’ and ‘Chest wound’. Very next turn he received ‘Mute’ as a result of disease, and it didn’t go well with my long-term strategy.
It isn't nessesary you will repeat my story, but tests I made afterwards displayed Dragon without Awe is a gamble. If you feel lucky - sure, try it, I know I won't anymore.

Another thing I understood through my experience: Pretender SC’s should be expandable. I see no sense of spending too much design points on someone who’s main job is to risk his life on the battlefield. Adding extra death path on the Dragon costs a lot, but he is capable of expanding early without it and Fear and Soul Vortex wouldn’t save him from horde of undeads + Rigor mortis in midgame. IMO SC’s are better combined with high dominion and good scales, if strong death magic is so viable for the nation it is better to choose another pretender.

Awake blue dragon with W9 + Nations with access to sacred undead = very efficient combo

Who cares if he dies after early game?- early expansion + bless benefit reap the fruits throughout the game, anything more from him is an added bonus.

I personally love the blue dragon. Too bad they took out his water breathing.

Oh right, I was confusing the effects of pretender-death with those of the "mute" affliction.

[zlefin]

one VERY important point to consider with green dragon is its ability to (barring a nasty mute or feeblemind affliction) cast Gift of Health; which can cure any afflictions he's gotten earlier, as well as even being able to heal a feeblemind or mute gotten after you've cast it (as long as you still live). GoH + regen is always strong, and lets the dragon be quite dangerous defensively even later in the game. Of course whether you can get up GoH in a game depends a lot on game size and your nations, but it's an important point to consider for the green d.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, if you give a Wyrm a Wraithcrown, the ability to add a second head item should go a long ways towards increasing the Wyrm's power. Even just slapping 2 horned helmets on a Wyrm will make it more surviveable (and more dangerous) against hordes of chaff in the early game, and you can trade these out when you're ready.

Since you've already got regeneration, the addition of a reinvigoration amulet can help solve the fatigue problem, and an amulet of magic resistance can go a ways to ward off spells.

Nothing's gonna keep the Wyrm around forever against a determined enemy with enough power and tricks up their sleeve, but I have to agree that a well kitted Wyrm is a more pure, and longer lasting, SC than a dragon. And if you never put any paths on it, you don't lose too much by continually resurrecting a unit that's at the very least going to remain a decent thug.

Speaking of which, one of the best uses I feel that a dragon can be put to, is adding another source of damage to your Nation. Shock isn't available (for some reason? This would have been a great place for an Asian dragon Pretender), but if you've got poor access to fire, cold, or poison damage, a dragon might be just the thing. Using it as a pure SC will quickly get your dragon killed off, but you can still resurrect them in the mid-game, and then use them for combination attacks. If you're a poison-dealing Nation, then poison PLUS fire. If you've got lightning, then lightning PLUS cold. With the dragon's wings and natural resilience, this gives you a decent first-response option, and maybe the key to winning some battles against a Nation that didn't expect fire (or poison) from Niefelheim or Eagle Kings.

[thejeff]

Can't the Dragon take most indy provinces on his own? That's the whole point of an expansion pretender, after all. And since he can fly, he can bypass hard ones without wasting turns sneaking.

The stealth form may be of more use in late game raiding. Fly in, take a province, change forms and sneak away before a counterattack can teleport in.

There may be cases where leading stealth troops in is more useful than the flying mobility. I suspect I'd be more inclined to use other stealthly leaders and combine to attack when needed.

I don't have the game in front of me at the moment. If the Druid sneaks to an enemy provinces, changes form and flies to a second enemy province, what happens? Does he fight in the first province, second province or both?
My assumption would be second, but I could be wrong.

[Gandalf Parker]

You cant.
Once you change form you are in "defend" and cannot move.
Your only options are "change form" or "attack current province"

[TheConway]

Perhaps its just my lack of experience, but I haven't seen or heard of stealth being used in ANY successful strategy as anything more than a very minor side benefit.

[LDiCesare]

Perhaps its just my lack of experience, but I haven't seen or heard of stealth being used in ANY successful strategy as anything more than a very minor side benefit.

I've been pretty successful screwing my enemies' economy with Helheim stealthy troops. Hit, hide, disrupt again. Enemy can't find you, and either has to spend lots and lots of cash on PD, or move armies inside his own territory to take them back.

[Gandalf Parker]

Stealth can be very handy as a tactic. But as a strategy its pretty difficult. Also, the map sizes used for most MP games doesnt tend to support game strategies built around stealth or flying nations. So those things are downgraded to a quicky early-game tactic only. Stealth doesnt tend to have a good late game, or even a later mid-game. It CAN be used as a strong component to a real alliance (not just two nations who dont attack each other). But that doesnt happen much either. So no, you arent likely to see it used much as a strategy in most mp games on this forum.

[thejeff]

Interesting. Both stealth and flying are very useful for raiding. Raiding is what the late game is all about.
Teleport/Cloud Trapeze become more important than flying for the initial attack, but flying lets you move more unpredictably and avoid getting trapped. Stealth lets your raiders vanish, making them immune to most counterattacks.

I see them used less in the early game. Stealth is almost useless during expansion. There's almost always some province you can attack or a way around the impossibly hard ones. Flying is mostly useful early on for quickly reaching unclaimed indies, somewhat negated by early flying troops being pretty weak.

In the early wars both are useful for blitz attacks. Striking most of an enemies lightly defended rear provinces in one turn.

I'm not sure where the claim that "you arent likely to see it used much as a strategy in most mp games on this forum", unless you're discounting all the above as not a strategy?