Here be Dragons! A Discussion Thread about Dragons in the Mortal Realms.

[Neverchosen]

Hey everyone,

Between the recent Broken Realms short story and Kragnos' origin, I have seen a number of people extremely excited at the prospect of a return of dragons to prominence within the lore and hopefully on the tabletop. I thought it would be fun to have a dedicated thread to the topic and maybe even a place to share your own dragons. 

What are you personally hoping to see from one of the biggest staple elements of fantasy and such an important but currently underrepresented part of the mortal realms?

I also want to start this thread with the notion that all dragons are welcome. No taxonomical discrimination between drakes, wyrms, undead, Dragonogor, wyverns/cabbages, dinosaur mounted dinosaur, or mutated demonic threeheaded horses. Heck maybe your dragon is a free guild general with the heart of a dragon! If it is a dragon to you it is more than welcome by me. 

Edited July 13, 2021 by Neverchosen

[Neverchosen]

To start things off, I sadly do not have any dragons in my lists, nor have I ever owned a Games Workshop dragon in my collection.

I am personally enamoured by the idea of dragons as wandering beasts that can be allied to any army. A kit that had optional builds to make it suitable for each grand alliance would be fantastic. However, I feel like the direction the lore is pointing towards right now is the idea that certain armies will have access to dragons and they will be tied to that specific faction. I do think there is something interesting about the manner in which dragons seem to be more heavily tied to Order as they are related to the Seraphon and both Stormcast and Cities have dragons as well as hints in artwork that Lumineth make use of dragons as well. 

[MitGas]

Dragons > pretty much all other monsters. If they released something akin to Mega-Gargants but in ...well draconic, it would actually be very cool. Guess they'd want to work in a major defeat for Kragnos before that point in the storyline though.

Personally obviously hoping for Chaos dragons, the coolest of them all.

[SunStorm]

It would be good to get a generic dragon kit that might have a couple of optional bits for different kinds, but I suspect we will instead see a much more AoSified version, like how the Mawkrusha is based on a Wyvern, but MORE. 

 

There are a couple of classic dragons in my heart:

1) My first ever dragon kit was the forest dragon from the wood elf range: http://www.sodemons.com/rhdragons/10whfb4/199606forest/index.htm

It was a pain to assemble and keep together, including my first ever attempts at pinning a model kit, but I loved it all the same. Shame it got lost during the dark years between school and re-discovering the hobby some years later. 

 

2) While I never owned him, I always loved the design of Egrimm on Baudros: http://www.sodemons.com/rhdragons/10whfb4/199602baudros/index.htm

 

 

 

[Skreech Verminking]

So….…

…. Considering…..

that a hell pit abomination isn’t really anything else, but a wyvern, stitched together with a few many rat bodies, kept alive through many many trials of  surgeries and baths in warps-tone growth juices,

May I..

or let’s say may we (the skaventide players) be apart of this wishlisting?

If that is the case,

I’m hoping for some more newish hellish, wyvern, stitched and glued together through dark magic, for clans moulder.

Yes-yes

let the beast-things scurry-rise!!

Edited July 13, 2021 by Skreech Verminking

[Baron Klatz]

One of (the many) things I like that Age of Sigmar expanded on is that dragons are in a sense "primordial vermin" that are just everywhere from the beginning with even other worlds like the world-that-was being this scattered natural force of order that can be found on planets where only titans and monsters inhabit and fight over.

This taken up to max with God-beasts like Dracothion and Ignax (the one that was chained down to a floating continent to act as a fire realm sun) to show off that "creatures of creation" vibe and how we commonly see them in the background everywhere from flying around cities to Carmine dragons in Shyish being the first victims of the purple sun Endless Spell as it wanders in from the realm edges.

I'd very much love to see more realm dragons and their relations to the many races but my love us solidly with the celestial Stardrakes. Breathing lightning, calling down destructive starfalls, sending Stormcasts on heavenly quests to find their soul kept solargems above the stars..

 

They're just epic all over.

 

[Overread]

AoS has been very empty of dragons! FW even lost several awesome dragon models during the lifespan of AoS! 

 

For a long while we've been teased that Malarions Aelf force has a "draconic" style but that's only a single line in the 2.0 rule book and since hten only a few pictures of him where he's looking more classic devil  than dragon. 

Meanwhile most other factions haven't seen a dragon at all! And yet there's ripe room for woodland, cursed, warp, black, dark, blood, bone and more types of dragon to appear within various armies!!

 

Heck I just want a slaanesh/warpfire/ossiarchs/DoK dragon to appear in the game. 

[the Fel-hand]

I'm pretty excited to see what they do on the dragon front. I've been enjoying 3.0 so far but a dragon that fits in with the new stormcast would be awesome. That said I really like the ideal of a dragon type for each order. No rider just pure allied dragon action that any fraction can take, I think it would be fun.

[Noserenda]

After the disappointing Stardrake i just want GW to stretch/abuse their new plastics design tech to create something insanely dynamic, spiralling up or twisting down, something like that? I was reminded recently of the excellent FW dragons they made in the Monstrous Arcanum era and obviously the various other centrepieces they have been able to create recently. 

The potential is there! 

[Neverchosen]

I am enjoying all the dragon love particularly the focus on Chaos dragons*. I am still hopeful that we will see one in its two headed glory in the not too distant future. I am also tempted to try and make something fantasy based out of the Helldrake but I sincerely doubt my capabilities. Although if Chaos Dwarves do get released either as part of Slaves to Darkness or stand alone I might get an infantry hero and place him on the back of a hell drake and run it as some kind of demon engine or even a Soulgrinder.

I will admit I have a strange fondness for the Stardrake, and do not really understand all the hate. Maybe I relate to an awkward dragon wearing way too much armour... My only issue is that it is a little outside my price range for my little Stormcast force. That is why I am personally hoping for more a midrange option between a Dracoth and Stardrake. 

Malerion leaning heavily towards dragons is the only reason I am a little suspicious about the idea of Tyrion mounted on a dragon. Give us back Malhandir and make him a Pegasus/Unicorn with a weird/dope Lumineth mask!

*which of course includes and the Hell Pit Abomination!

Edited July 14, 2021 by Neverchosen

[Zeblasky]

Give me a Forest Dragon model straight out of TW:W (or at least with a close resembalance), and I'll literally take 2 please. Not a surprise considering my avatar I guess (it's a gift from my gf btw). Add a Moon or a Star Dragon look alike, and that would be 4 please, yes, death to my wallet, all glory to great dragon models.

Edited July 14, 2021 by Zeblasky

[Kadeton]

While I did have a lot of love for the old Forest Dragon, the metal dragons in general leaned into the Trogdor style (draw an S, put some beefy arms coming out the back of his neck there).

Now that the plastics have established a more chunky style (e.g. Dhorgar, cabbages, stardrakes) I'd love to see that treatment applied to some of the "classic" dragons, and their fantasy nature turned up to 11 - a Forest Dragon entirely made out of trees, for example.

[zilberfrid]

I love dragons, in most shapes!

Give me a feathered serpent! Send me a linnworm! Surprise me with a fluffy long boy assosiated with luck! Bring me a classic Smaugh! Hail Hydra! Sign me up for an Ampithere! I embrace scorpion tailed Wyverns (though carefully)!

That said, none of the current GW dragon designs really do it for me. The black dragons' mouths makes it only work as a filter feeder (as did the others, though the forest dragon was cool and the head that looks like it can actually close mitigates much of that), and magmadroths, dracoths (or dracolines?) and stardrake's beefiness seems more stiff and clumsy than powerful. Archaon's mount is good in general but focussed a bit much on the chaos gods. Both Cockatrice and Dragon Ogre show their age too much.The cabbage without rider is a better chunky than the Stardrake, but it doesn't sell that it can fly.

The best dragons would be Drogor, Morathi or Lauka Vai with a dragon head, and maybe reapplying flesh to the dearly departed Zombie Dragon would help that.

[Lord Veshnakar]

While not traditionally dragons, Magmadroths are one of my favorites in Age of Sigmar. I love a traditional style Salamander dragon without wings. I just wish the Gigadroths talked about in the Sons of Behemat book were a part of the range. 😲

[Indecisive]

I'm hoping it isn't Stormcast hogging them all

To add a few in, aside from Stormcast:
Noodle dragons of the elves in WHFB redone
Seraphon Coatl
Death, a second dragon so everyone stops hogging the bat dragon. Something less fleshy, bone dragon maybe.
Adding any dragons to Destruction will be... tricky now

 

[Overread]

6 hours ago, Noserenda said:

After the disappointing Stardrake i just want GW to stretch/abuse their new plastics design tech to create something insanely dynamic, spiralling up or twisting down, something like that? I was reminded recently of the excellent FW dragons they made in the Monstrous Arcanum era and obviously the various other centrepieces they have been able to create recently. 

The potential is there! 

I actually wonder if the person who made the stardrake also did the Tyranid Trygon. They both share a very "boxy" style to their core body that I'm not the biggest fan of. The Stardrake makes it worse because of the chunky boxy style armour that its wearing. 

It's not a bad model its just not the most fluid and streamlined of dragons.

[SunStorm]

For those interested, The Stuff of Legends has a nice selection of the older GW dragons:

http://www.sodemons.com/rhdragons/index.htm

Not sure if this is the place to discuss, but there are some pretty nice dragons produced by other companies, which means GW will need to really pull off a good design. 

CreatureCaster do the huge Necromancer Dragon for example: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jymmy]

An unpopular opinion: I like the fact that there are no dragons in the Mortal Realms, as it makes them more unique (dragons are an staple in almost all fantasy settings). In fact, most of the Order Serpentis lore works around the idea that the dragons are almost extinct. This way they seem something rare and special.

[Zappgrot]

Lets see. I  really don't have manny dragons either. They tent to look down on destruction armies i gues. I did have a few in fanatsy tough but they kind of fell appart by bad storage. ( i was pretty stupid as a teen ager.  I do have 2 mawcrushers tough.  Sort of dragons if you ask me.  For the future i kinda wanna get a stardrake and i am hopeing the kruelboys get soem sort of wyvren whit their range 

[Overread]

2 hours ago, SunStorm said:

Not sure if this is the place to discuss, but there are some pretty nice dragons produced by other companies, which means GW will need to really pull off a good design. 

CreatureCaster do the huge Necromancer Dragon for example: 

 

That dragon is on my "To get list" as its just utterly awesome. 

And yes there are some phenomenal dragons out there now. The 3D printing world has exploded with dragons - Mini Monster Mayhem and Lord of the Print are two big 3D designers who have put out a good number of seriously awesome dragon models over the last 1-2 years and are still going. 

 

 

I like the idea of dragons being rare, though at the same time I don't feel as if GW has replaced them with much either. The Mortal Realms are shown to be a world full of big beasts and magic, but so far we don't actually have all that many new medium or bigger models in that category. GW have been busy with big super-powerful leader models and we did get Gargants, but I still feel as if big mythical beasts and monsters are under-represented.

[JackStreicher]

uh I'd love some new Dragon Sculpts from GW. Dragons might be rare in the Mortal Realms, yet there is no excuse to sell Models as (imo) ugly as the Black Dragon. the Stormcast Dragons are ok, though a bit too blocky.

I'd like a truly terrifying dragon Model for my Darklings and my Stormcast.

[Neverchosen]

18 minutes ago, Overread said:

That dragon is on my "To get list" as its just utterly awesome. 

And yes there are some phenomenal dragons out there now. The 3D printing world has exploded with dragons - Mini Monster Mayhem and Lord of the Print are two big 3D designers who have put out a good number of seriously awesome dragon models over the last 1-2 years and are still going. 

 

 

I like the idea of dragons being rare, though at the same time I don't feel as if GW has replaced them with much either. The Mortal Realms are shown to be a world full of big beasts and magic, but so far we don't actually have all that many new medium or bigger models in that category. GW have been busy with big super-powerful leader models and we did get Gargants, but I still feel as if big mythical beasts and monsters are under-represented.

As a chaos player Creature Caster has been on my radar for some time but these two are new to me and all I can say is wow. These two dragons stood out to me as really awesome proxies for Zombie and Chaos Dragons* respectively:

https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-werewolf-dragon-141759

https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-tiamat-148463

I sadly do not really know anything about 3d printing so I feel they aren't in the cards for me.

As for big beasts in the mortal realms I was going to respond with an enormous list, but then I realized your point was correct as most of the creatures and beasts I was going to list are from the World that Was. The newer ranges like Stormcast, Lumineth, Fyreslayers, IDK, Soulblight and each Destruction army** all have some kind of new relatively big beast. The Chaos factions got updates to a number of demonic centre pieces... but overall relatively few truly new big monsters.

*I guess technically a proxy for Archaon/Drogor in this case as there are no Chaos Dragon rules sadly
**Except ogors whose bigger monsters are all from the WHFB

[Overread]

14 minutes ago, Neverchosen said:

As a chaos player Creature Caster has been on my radar for some time but these two are new to me and all I can say is wow. These two dragons stood out to me as really awesome proxies for Zombie and Chaos Dragons* respectively:

https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-werewolf-dragon-141759

https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-tiamat-148463

I sadly do not really know anything about 3d printing so I feel they aren't in the cards for me.

It's a bit off topic, but do drop me a message if 3D printing interests you. It's something I've got into over the last year or so. 

 

 

And yep GW have done a lot of updates and I think that there are gaps right now - big things is one, artillery is another. It surprises me that GW didn't separate troops into troops and cavalry since that's an easy one to add where most force do have cavalry or equivalents. Meanwhile a lot of forces don't have any kind of artillery to use at all. It's present in lore now and then, but its still absent from the game. Another aspect that likely will improve over time. 

[Kamose]

I love dragons and I'd love to see more of them in AoS. I'm interested to see what modern GW's sculptors can do! 

To be brutally honest, when I first started Warhammer I choose 40k over Fantasy because those old metal fantasy dragons were (imo) really bad. I just don't enjoy the 'earthworm with huge feet and an even bigger head with teeth so large it can't close its mouth so let's make screaming, tongue-flapping monsters a thing for the next 4 decades' aesthetic.

Of course they can make some awesome models now and I'm a fan of the Magmadroth and Stardrake (they can even close their mouths).

Spoilers for the last Broken Realms short story:

Skink Starseer: "Hey skink! Look what we did!"

Skink: "OMG you hatched a bunch of dragons! We get to fight with dragons now?!"

Starseer: "No!"

Skink: "What?! Why?"

Starseer: "There's another little boy out there who needs them even more. And his name is Sigmar."

'cue Mickey Rooney musical number about painting fences or something'

 

[Overread]

I too was never much a fan of the early GW dragon designs. I do get that they were in part a style choice and in part a move to try and make them practical to cast out of metal and not cost a fortune for gamers. Though for me the biggest thing I never liked were the high backed chairs. You've got this lithe eastern style dragon with a huge jaw - fine - then you put a huge freaking high backed armchair on its back. It just looked "wrong".