Evolving My Dragon Dice Army

I played several games today; I learned that I do need magic. I managed to win a few games, due to an excellent alpha strike with the wolf pack and vindicators smashing 15-18 points of my opponent's army. That is not something I can rely on every game, sayeth Charrlie. I decided to branch out a little and settled on Fire Walkers, since they share a color. Here is the current collection:

Monsters:  1 Wolf Pack; 1 Remorhaz; 1 Cryohydra | 1 Phoenix; 1 Genie
Melee: 3 Vindicators; 2 Defenders; 4 Advocates | 1 Expeditioner; 3 Explorers; 1 Adventurer; 1 Guardian
Cavalry: 2 Wolf Masters; 1 Hound Master | 2 Shadowchasers
Missile:  1 Assaulter; 1 Dispatcher; 3 Destroyers; 2 Attackers | 2 Fire Masters; 1 Fire Starter
Magic: 2 Apprentice | 1 Ashbringer; 1 Sunflare; 1 Sunburst

As before, melee, cavalry, missile, magic.

Join me below as we get down to business of paring these 75 points of dice down to a lean 36.

The first thing to do is to remove everything we know we don't want and that is sub-optimal for our plan. I wasn't pleased with either the Remorhaz or the Cryohydra, and with a Genie or Phoenix available, they are both gone. That's 8 points. Frostwings have great maneuverability, but our cavalry  lack Fly. Likewise, we don't need Shadowchasers. Axing them gets us back 7 points (60 remaining). Looking at what we have, I see that we can build toward heavy saves. So, let's start getting rid of our more fragile units. Of our non-common melee units, the Expeditioner and Adventurer are too fragile.

Monsters:  1 Wolf Pack | 1 Phoenix; 1 Genie (12 points)
Melee: 3 Vindicators; 2 Defenders; 4 Advocates | 3 Explorers; 1 Guardian (21 points)
Missile:  1 Assaulter; 1 Dispatcher; 3 Destroyers; 2 Attackers | 2 Fire Masters; 1 Fire Starter (14 points)
Magic: 2 Apprentice | 1 Ashbringer; 1 Sunflare; 1 Sunburst (8 points)

Melee, missile, magic. The monsters? They just float.

Nineteen points left to cut! Let's decide what the two major marching parts of our army should do. Clearly, with three Vindicators and a Wolf Pack, we are going melee. Our remaining troops are weakly split between missile and magic troops. The Phoenix plays into our defensive nature, while the Genie enables mobility and reliable casting. The Fire Starter has no place here, so it goes.

Advocates, Guardians and Explorers all have two save faces; so there's fat to cut here. The Guardian wastes a face on missile, so he's gone. The Advocates' Fly and two melee face are tempting, especially since Explorers waste a face on missile. The two maneuver on the Explorers are good, and they have the same total saves as Advocates. Since we're hoping for good saves, let's drop Attackers and Fire Masters. This leaves us with 47 points. Nine points to cut.

Monsters:  1 Wolf Pack | 1 Phoenix; 1 Genie (12 points)
Melee: 3 Vindicators; 2 Defenders; 4 Advocates | 3 Explorers (20 points)
Missile:  1 Assaulter; 1 Dispatcher; 3 Destroyers |  (7 points)
Magic: 2 Apprentice | 1 Ashbringer; 1 Sunflare; 1 Sunburst (8 points)

Everything is still the same. Don't worry!

If we cut all of our missile troops, that gets us almost to where we want to be. None of them have SAIs, and I want to try out magic next game. This leaves our mages vulnerable, so we'll be relying on the Genie and Phoenix. To get us to 36, we'll shave off the Advocates instead of the Explorers.

Monsters:  1 Wolf Pack | 1 Phoenix; 1 Genie (12 points)
Melee: 3 Vindicators; 2 Defenders; | 3 Explorers (16 points)
Magic: 2 Apprentice | 1 Ashbringer; 1 Sunflare; 1 Sunburst (8 points)

When it comes to deployment, my Frostwing melee go with the Wolf Pack in the away team to try and win that roll. We'll stick an Explorer in the frontier. One Explorer each for the two main armies.

Next, terrain. We need to recover, so that means a city. We have a Phoenix and a Genie, both have beneficial SAIs for missiles, which makes me wince to have passed on our missiles. Maybe my next build will focus on missile instead of melee with our magic. The Coastland lets us stay out of melee longer, at the cost of only having one magic face. That hurts, but Coastland City for home it is.

Next is harder; a standing stones would be good, especially a blue terrain so our Apprentices can double on their IDs and our Fire Walkers can escape easily from it. We don't want another Coastland, in case we go up against Coral Elves. A temple or city are also viable choices, so I think proposing a Wasteland Castle is my best bet. My mages don't need to get there until it hits its eighth face, and it provides me some flexibility against a heavy magic black army.

Our ideal first play is to march our mages and then either shoot or magic (passing on any attempts to melee, obviously). Then, unless we are sitting on a 7 for the terrain die, after our melee team marches, our Explorers whisk off to reinforce the melee squad. Likewise, the lone Explorer on the Frontier either hops to join them or falls to the reserves. I think we're too monster heavy, and the Phoenix or the Genie could easily turn into some solid smaller creatures. But, for now, I like monsters. Roar, monsters.

I think we're too monster heavy.

Home: Genie, Phoenix, Ashbringer, Sunflare, Sunburst, 2 Apprentices, Explorer
Frontier: Explorer
Away: Wolf Pack, 3 Vindicators, 2 Defenders, Explorer
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P.S.,

Charrlie now has a tag! Also, if you suffered through another Dragon Dice, but would prefer not to have, go here for some fiction. To read my last bit on writing, check here. I promise, tomorrow's post will not deal with a game most of you could care less about. Unless, you want more Dragon Dice. If so, let me know in the comments.