Dragon stats and ruins of esgaroth scenario

[jchaos79]

Hello,

Today we have played several times the scenario "The ruins of esgaroth" of the rulebook. Smaug lost all the games and seemed to be impossible to do great damage to the men army. In the scenario and rulebook Smaug's stats are considered very powerful, but we can`t see that in our games. If the dragon attacks a enemy battle line, the next turn he will be surrounded and it is destroyed as he finds enemies in his retreat way. The scenario seems unbalanced, but towards the lake's men!!! 

Somebody has played this scenario? In WMF Elve's dragon is suppoused to be even very unbalancing in the games, somebody has played with it? 

Cheers!

[Guthwine]

I cant speak for Bofa but in WMF the high elf dragon does some good damage but will most likely suffer the same fate, as Smaug in your example. Id say in WMF hes not worth the points on its own. But if you add 2 eagles to the dragon he is very effective and not that easy to surround. But 300 points are a nice catch for the opponent and could get you ending up with a draw.

[azrael71]

I played against High Elves last night using a Dwarven air corp list.
The dragon was pretty ineffectual while the eagles took out a 500 point zeppelin 

I love dragons (as is proven by having 10 of them scattered around my armies) but in game they are NOT worth the points, if they get stuck into combat more often than not they get destroyed next turn.
I know it would be a radical change to the rules but units with a high original movement should get more dice for redeployment, then flyers become truly devastating.
Imagine a dragon swooping in destroying a unit and then redeploying out of the way of potential attack.
Like I said, this would change the way the game plays completely and flyers would then be more than artillery killers!

I do play against one bloke who reckons his son wins every time and takes maximum dragons and an hero on a dragon Only ever seen this lad play once against a complete newbie and he had his ass handed to him

Whilst on the subject of BOFA & dragons does anyone have any thoughts on the rules for the other named dragons in Middle Earth?