Crowned Champion
by Christopher Pastore
I've been a big fan of the Lion and Dragon sculpts for years, and have almost every model Rackham released for both of them. Naturally once the Age of Rag'narok was upon us I chose to stick with my old friends.
Looking to field a competitive army for 2008 Nationals, I considered the benefits of the Gift of the Dragon. Being able to take any challenge all the way to the right on the Universal Table of Resolution (you know — "the happy place" where 2+ hits and 4+ generates bonus dice) is a great advantage. Of course it is only once per turn, but when it gets used, it is tremendous! This can be great in ranged combat. I found two units that are cost effective and great with the Gift of the Dragon. One is the Dragon creature. It has an area of effect breath weapon with strength of 10. So if I Gift the Range test, those three dice often turn into 4 or more successes. Well, as soon as I get 4 hits, the area of effect template turns into 10 cm radius with TWO Strength tests of 10 for each model under the template. Pretty nice, considering it can be anywhere on the board that the dragon can see, and he's pretty tall!
The other good ranged unit for Gift of the Dragon are the Akhamial. They are good because you can get 8+ models on the board for few points. These fellows have an accuracy of 4, so I just let them roll their 9 dice, and will get maybe 4 hits if the range is 5 or less (that's 39 cm with obstruction — so not bad!). Gift the Strength test, and those 4 hits turn into an average of 7 or 8 wounds on even the most Resilient warriors!
So we've got some good hitting — obviously the Gift can be used on close combat, or whatever, but in the beginning of the game we have some good long range hitting. All I had to worry about was not getting my units killed.
I like the Lion's Royal Guard, as their Hard Boiled, Sacred Armor and Resilience of 9 make them tough to hurt. Figure even a Strength 10 hit only scores on a 4+, then Sacred Armor moves that to a 5+ and Hard Boiled doesn't allow any bonus dice. They are tough to kill. But I wanted to make it harder!
The ace up my sleeve, the Chrysopean Crown. The WHOLE COMPANY gets Survival Instinct. So now against ordinary warriors you need a 6+ to wound the Royal Guard, and then you have to roll those successes again! The Pulsar, Dragon, Royal Guard and Sylann are almost impossible to hurt. Yes — I took Sylann as my Incarnate because I like the model and if I'm going to use a level 3 Artifact, no point taking a Magician.
Overall this army did quite well at Nationals 2008. Many of the game were just total devastation of the opponent with only 1 unit lost for the Dragons. The toughest game of them all was, quite appropriately, the finals. I played Jeff, who had a nasty Hydra army. The Gift of the Hydra is extremely annoying, and the Hydra Warriors are tough to beat. Early game showed very few losses on either side, between the Chrysopean Crown for the Dragons and the Gift of the Hydra. Mid-game I was definitely on the ropes — I thought I was doomed. When Jeff rolled EIGHT sixes in a row I was getting very nervous! Late in the game the dice started going my way and I scraped out a victory against a very good, and very pleasant opponent. The battle was won, but the war still rages on!
