Fantasy Friday - Dark Elf Black Dragon

I have always been a big fan of dragons. In fact, the biggest disappointment for me this Summer is that Smaug is not going to be in the first Hobbit film. Seriously, I cannot wait until the second film.

Back when I was picking a Warhammer Fantasy army, I used process of elimination and removed the armies that could not take a dragon. I eventually settled on Dark Elves, because they had Hydras as well. The new Game's Workshop black dragon model is pretty cool looking. However, I had already picked up the resin dragon from Ultraforge which looks even more awesome.

I am pretty happy with how it came out. I tried to use a purple spray on glaze on the flat black primer. It did not show up so well, but then I layered on a midnight blue dry brush on the scales. The result turned out good and breaks up the black a bit. I used a dark grey for the underbelly and scorched brown for the horns and wings. Boltgun metal washed with Badab black and highlighted with Mithril silver was used for the armor plates.  I used blood red for the armor straps and rider platform.

The wings and the rider basket are magnetized. It's great since I can remove the rider if his/her mount is slain. Taking a dragon in my list is a huge points investment. Mike and played a storm of magic game last week and I took it as a bound monster. Flying units can be really annoying at times.

Big Storm of Magic Game

In general, the large points investment in a dragon mount is not considered competitive since it uses up the lord points normally reserved for level four sorceresses. However, I heard a rumor that the winner of the Adepticon fantasy tournament ran Dark Elf list with an anti-magic lord on a black dragon. It's been hard trying to find out information about the Fantasy results as 40k seems to still dominate most blogs.

Based on my last tournament, taking two level four sorceresses wasn't a great idea. They basically got into a miscast war with each other every game and ended up taking themselves out.

Yo dawg, I heard you like dragons. So we put a dragon on your dude riding a dragon.

For the next 2500 point tournament, I am going to run a Dreadlord with a black dragon mount. It's a lot of points for a Dreadlord delivery system, but I think it can be effective with a little luck. I am still not sure which build to use though. I am considering one of these:

Dreadlord build#1 570 points
General, Heavy Armor, Sea Dragon Cloak, Shield, Black Dragon Mount
Whip of Agony, Pendant of Khaeleth, Crown of Command

Dreadlord build#2 569 points
General, Sea Dragon Cloak, Shield, Black Dragon Mount
Biting Blade, Armor of Eternal Servitude, Ring of Hotek, Crown of Command

Build #1 is the standard annoying "unkillable" dreadlord.  Good for tying up whatever big nasty block of death my opponent has on the table.  Reverse ward save + stubborn is still amazing.

Build#2 is more anti-magic with the Ring of Hotek. This has potential to work great if I can fly my lord near enemy wizards.  The Armor of Eternal servitude gives regeneration to help keep him alive.

Anyway, I have some time to try out both builds before the next tournament. Look for more updates as my foray into Fantasy continues.