Quote:
Originally Posted by Karlos
Not dragons they aren't. At least not blackies. An example:
First turn, my blackies are first to go due to their high init. I press Wait, whittle down the mob on either edge with my shooters and prevent the enemy from advancing with Loki's touch, Ice Blades or various spawns. At the end of the first turn my blackies fly forward, hit the whittled down mob on the edge plus the one behind it. Right at the start of the second turn I cast greasy mist and my blackies do their fly'n'fire thing hitting often 4 or more stacks all at once due to them being still neatly lined up (the excellent Sabotage skill helps magnificently). Then it's just a matter of some planning to keep them out of harm's way for the rest of the fight while the other units easily mop up the thinned enemy ranks 
That way the fight is decided at the beginning of the second turn, all thanks to black dragons. They're not front line shock troops but with the right tactics they're dps monsters. Throw in the crystal with decreased leadership requirement + higher morale, the 3rd level Oratory and the 3rd level Berserker skill and they're the highest dps dealing units in the game, easily.
True Red Dragons can be made tougher with Stone Skin and so on but they can burn only in a straight line which is much less usable than the blackies' zig-zag burning and frankly - you don't need dragons to be your front line tanks. There're much better units for that (Executioners, Demons, Griffins come to mind). |
But as you progress through the game and enemy stacks become larger, it becomes impossible for your Black Dragons to survive any retaliations without losses in battle. So unless you have lots of Black Dragons available for purchase you're forced to rely only on their ability (Reload 3?) for dps ... I'm not sure dealing damage every 3-4 turns is worth an entire slot in an army.
Red Dragons are at least still viable late-game because they can be healed/ressed/restored with sacrifice/etc.