Black Dragons

Template:Khadbox2 This model is playable only in an Unlimited format.

Khador’s heavily armored Iron Fang pikemen are charged with hunting down and destroying enemy warjacks, carrying explosive-tipped blasting pikes designed to tear through the thickest armor of man or machine. The most veteran of these pikemen are welcomed into the elite Black Dragon kompany, where their experience and precision make them brutally efficient on the attack and unbreakable in defense.

Rally the Black Dragons behind the standard of Khador and lead them to glory at the command of their brave Kapitan.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Entire unit
  • Template:Practiced Maneuvers

• Leader, Grunts, & Officer
  • Template:CMA
  • Template:Precision Strike
  • Template:Shield Wall

• Officer only
  • The Officer has a better statline
  • Template:Officer
  • Template:Iron Zeal
  • Template:Tactics (Template:Side Step-alt)

• Standard only
  • Template:Standard Bearer
  • Template:Take Up

Weapons

Leader, Grunts, & Officer	Blasting Pike File:Sword icon.jpg  RNG   POW   P+S  2 7 13 Template:Critical Knockdown
Standard Bearer	Template:Unarmed

Theme Forces

• Khador
  • Template:Legion of Steel

• Other Factions
  • Infernal players can use this unit in the Template:Hearts of Darkness theme, but only if Malakov2 is leading the army.

Thoughts on Black Dragons

Black Dragons in a nutshell

The Black Dragons are an elite unit within the Iron Fang Pikemen, gaining Practiced Maneuvers and Precision Strike but costing slightly more. A hard hitting shield wall unit, the Black Dragons are a decently viable unit in their niche and more than good enough for friendly games, but with two such close units in stats and abilities there has to be one winner and the Iron Fangs are almost identical but more cost effective.

Thoughts on the CA

The Officer and Standard Bearer give Iron Zeal and Side Step. That's more toughness and maneuverability; ARM 21 is enough to shrug off almost all incoming fire that's meant to hit infantry.

Combos & Synergies

• Anything that gives ARM buffs.
• The Iron Fang Kovnik grants them Steady on non-iron zeal turns and Unyielding.
• Kapitan Sofya Skirova gives them +1 to hit

Drawbacks & Downsides

• With the lack of Set Defense Black Dragons die a lot to charging infantry.
• The Black Dragons have the same statline, weapons, and shield wall as the Iron Fang Pikemen and are more expensive. It's difficult to make the case that Practiced Maneuvers is that important if you are good at positioning, and Precision Strike on its own is not worth the extra points.
• The Iron Fang Kovnik and Uhlan Kovnik Markov between them hand out the differences between base Iron Fangs and the Black Dragons making this upgrade less than worthwhile. Indeed the Kovnik on his own covers most of the gap and more.
• Due to the regular Iron Fang minifeat the Black Dragons really need to make mileage out of their ARM 21.
• A mini-feat and charge from the regular Iron Fangs is simply superior to one from the Black Dragons.
• Like all single wound shield walls there are a number of sources of auto-damage like Anatomical Precision and Scather that stop them cold.

Tricks & Tips

• Iron Zeal and the shield wall between them bounce almost all anti-ARM shooting.
• Side Step allows them to brawl with infantry, spreading out to stab before bunching up in shield wall.

Other

Trivia

• Rules-wise, the Black Dragons used to be just a normal Iron Fang unit which a special CA.
• In the mk2 to mk3 transition, it became its own unit.
• The "Black Dragon" CA was released 2012-ish, and wasn't published in any expansion book.