Fire Dragons

[no-name]

their issues have more to do with being expensive to reinforce and dieing all the time. pairs are quite good against melee walkers though.

2 squads of expensive fire dragons to kite a walker between them isn't viable. they can't handle infantry after-wards either since they die too quick even if their damage is fairly decent against infantry. this is only really an option if you're already winning and just want to play around some.

maybe if they were tougher and didn't die as quick you could leave them as they are currently, maybe even leave out the melta bomb since the melta guns do very good damage as is but a flamer option would still be a great addition imo.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

i don't kite with them, i just run up and shoot at the walker while it's doing something else. two squads will do a shit ton of damage. their expense though isn't their intial cost; they're quite cheap there. their issue is that they lose models all the time and so spend a lot of time and money reinforcing.

they are horrible against infantry, especially in cover. their damage is ok but, again, they're really weak and get forced off quickly and their short range means they can always be shot at.

i do think a flamer would be cool, and, if it did enough damage, would make fire dragons more useful against infantry. might see them then.

[Kvek]

"ok" damage ? They can melt HI/SHI really quickly, yes they die really quickly but they do a shit ton of damage to everything, and with the ability they are great at chasing vehicles

[Nuclear Arbitor]

as an experiment i once let two squads of fire dragons with exarchs shoot at a tac squad in heavy cover with a flamer. i did flank the cover once i noticed what was happening although it took a bit. kind of an extreme case but the tac squad didn't lose a single model and killed 9 or 10 models. infantry generally have higher hit points than vehicles and meltas don't do very high damage, they simply do most of their damage to all armour types.

fire dragons are also only useful against snared vehicles or dreads because most vehicles are faster than them, even with their ability, and they get quickly forced off by damage. the only way to keep them on the field is to prevent them from taking damage. for example, do not use fire dragons, even in pairs, to counter a war trukk.

[Torpid]

Dragons are fantastic units, just not really in 2v2/3v3 sice most of those games will be done on linear maps that are too head-on, the dragons will just die too quickly. However engagement planning in 1v1 is far more complex due to the additional flanking routes and generally larger armies which are more spread out. A haywire grenade+Dragons can take out all vehicles but the toughest walkers alone providing you have banshees and autarchs around to support them from infantry.

Fire dragons are amazing at catching vehicles off guard, use it in combination with the Warlock's swift movement, WSE's group teleport (such an underused ability), the autarch's leap buffs, farseer's doom/guide/fortune or gates ( farseer especially for increased speed+infiltration) and they are just terrifying. I remember a game against wurgl on fedrid folley where he managed to take out my deff dread and two of my looted tanks with a single dragon squad because he just managed it all so well, flanking me while my army was forced off and my vehicles were injured by his wraithlord. Their melta damage also owns terminators and I assume avatars/guos, but again, they are a glass cannon, but we all know that.

[Ace of Swords]

try the 2 fire dragons vs terminators, they will go down in seconds.

[Orkfaeller]

Do (Firedragon) Meltas do more damage the closer you get? Or is it something I'm remembering wrong?

[Nurland]

The topic is called: "Wraithlord". Please stick to it.

[Codex]

If you want to continue the discussion start a new thread called "Fire Dragons"

[Nuclear Arbitor]

despite the loading tip no melta weapon has damage vary with distance.

although that's something that could be done... don't think it's necessary but it would be interesting to adjust the dps values of melta weapons with short/medium/long.

[Orkfaeller]

I'd love that, especially since Melta' ranges really arent THAT short. A bit less damage at distance but a small boost if you take the rist to get close.

Sry, got offtopic.