The Stuff of Legends: The Host of the Dragon Emperor

Good morning gamers,

If you've followed this blog for any period of time, you've probably picked up on something: I don't like Easterlings. I don't - I just don't. Or more appropriately, I didn't like Easterlings. I've heard others (like Matt from the Green Dragon Podcast) protest that Easterlings are not "just another version of Minas Tirith but with worse heroes" - but they are. They just are - or more appropriately, they were. With the release of Defence of the North, the Easterlings got three new heroes and two new warrior options - and while their depth chart isn't as developed as Mordor, Minas Tirith, Rohan, or Isengard, they got some key pieces to become a more competitive faction.

The chief among those improvements was the Dragon Emperor and to accompany this new (and very expensive) model was a new Legendary Legion that, in an astounding and brilliant move, didn't invalidate a "normal" Easterlings list. Yes, he'll probably show up in a lot of Easterling lists (and if you're running him, you probably take a good look at his Legion), but allying with Mordor or Khand (or just running them pure) isn't off the table.

The international community has seen this Legion run to deadly effect - especially in the hands of US-renowned player Matt Iverson - and so I've decided to set my personal biases aside, interview guys who love Easterlings (TMAT's own Centaur and Zorro, TMAT friend MinutemanKirk, and the aforementioned Matt Iverson), and give a fair shake to the Host of the Dragon Emperor Legendary Legion.

I will say that this self-proclaimed Easterling hater doesn't hate them anymore - and this Legion has single-handedly done that. Before anyone thinks I'm going to buy these guys, I will cite the $200 price tag on the Dragon Emperor as my primary deterrent to adding Easterlings to my already copious collection of models. Still, the Legion fascinates me - let's dig into what it does!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

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Legion Tax: 170pts

In this Legion, you need to include the Dragon Emperor of Rhun, who comes in at a bargain 170pts. Heroes of Legend are usually not cheap (Theoden, Dalamyr, Suladan, and some builds for the Witch-King aside) and 170pts might seem like a lot, but considering that he comes with a banner and basically has a chariot mount, he's actually quite cost-effective. In the Legion, he doesn't pick up that many buffs - he gets a reroll on one of his dueling dice (two with his banner if his palanquin is still on the board) and gets to upgrade warriors in his warband to Black Dragon for free (nothing wrong with that at all - and when you factor the 36pts saved on the Black Dragon upgrades and the 25pt+ banner, he's closer to 110pts for everything else). Despite not gaining that much, he's the perfect centerpiece to your army and while slow and on a big base, he is integral to the success of (I'll go out on a limb here) any Easterling force.

What you ACTUALLY need to bring in your army is at least 1 Easterling Kataphrakt with war drum in the Dragon Emperor's warband and the other 17 slots should include Easterling Warriors and any Easterling Kataphrakts that aren't fielded by Dragon Knights. Yes, you could bring Rhunish War Drakes or Dragon Cult Acolytes in the Dragon Emperor's warband, but each model you bring that can't upgrade to a Black Dragon is 2 points of free upgrades you're foregoing - just do it.

Legion Bonuses

Unless you're playing at 350pts or below (more on that at the end of the article), you probably want a second hero - and most of the time, that's probably Rutabi. Rutabi is the next closest thing to Amdur this list has and while she might not be as punchy as a mounted Dragon Knight on the charge (who are scary in this Legion), she's your most resilient hero who can be embedded in your phalanx and can roll an outrageous amount of dueling dice (and reroll all failed To Wound rolls if her opponent is trapped).

In Rutabi's warband, you should take any Dragon Cult Acolytes you intend to have in your army (and if you want to assume their base size is 40mm, you could add Rhunish War Drakes too) - and any Easterling Warriors she brings in your army probably don't need to be upgraded to Black Dragons (as you can have Black Dragons from the Emperor's warband supporting with pikes to lend the higher Fight Value to their fights). Don't field Kataphrakts with her - you want them to get the free upgrade to Black Dragon Kataphrakts for sure.

If the points level allows, it's at this point that you need to decide between a Dragon Knight or Brorgir - the age-old decision between a budget beater hero or an augmenting caster. Brorgir is a great hero but won't be doing much damage himself to the enemy (unless you get a really lucky Tremor - or unless you credit kills made by a Bladewrath-boosted ally to him). Matt Iverson was quick to remind me, though, that the THREAT of a Tremor against mounted troops or bomb teams is real and can cause those kinds of units to play more carefully - so there's that. 

Dragon Knights are fragile (2 Wounds/no Fate with D6-7 depending on whether they're benefitting from the Gleaming Horde), but with 4 Attacks on the charge and 1-2 rerolls from the Legion bonuses and potentially the banner of the Dragon Emperor's palanquin, these guys can win fights and kill a lot of stuff - and are cheap enough that you could have two (or even three) of these guys running around. Minor heroes though they be, they're quite strong offensively if you can keep them alive until the fighting starts.

I make no mention of Captains or War Priests in this list . . . honestly, I haven't had a single list that fields them that competes with lists that omit them. I like Marching with a War Drum, so if you want to do that, do it - but I wouldn't (not in this Legion, at any rate).

Part 2: Why Take This Legion Over "Normal" Allied Forces?

Players across the world have loved the Easterlings for years - mostly for their aesthetics or for their lore and less so for their game play. With Defence of the North, you now have +3 hero choices (all great) and +2 warrior choices (as well as "official" sculpts for Black Dragons - though color scheme changes have been fine in years past) if you're running the normal Easterlings army OR you can reduce your profile list slightly to get some cool bonuses. Let's look at the "trades" you need to make.

Weakness #1: Lost Two Good Heroes

Prior to Defence of the North, the big heroes for the Easterlings were Amdur (a F6/3A hero who is mounted on an armored horse and has Blood and Glory) and Khamul (who can be mounted on a Fell Beast and cast magic, regaining Will for every model he kills). Both were solid heroes, though expensive and kind of underwhelming compared to other big-beater man-sized heroes (like any number of Men, Elves, and Dwarves) or to other Ringwraiths (like the Witch-King or the Shadow Lord). By running the Easterlings list normally, you can run the Dragon Emperor with Amdur (and maybe Brorgir to buff Amdur out) for devastating damage - but in this Legion, Amdur is assumed to be at the Pelennor Fields and so will be absent from your list. Khamul is also assumed to be away (in the films, he'd be at the Pelennor too, but in the books, he actually led the assault on Mirkwood). Either way, the Legion is accurate to the books and doesn't give you access to either of them.

Strength #1: Not Much Love Lost

The fact is you probably don't need the two heroes you lost. Amdur is great - he's basically an upgraded Dragon Knight who has a banner rule (that can be better if he kills the enemy army leader) and more resilience. The banner boost is unnecessary since you've got a 12" banner radius from the Royal Palanquin - unless Amdur was WAY out of range, his banner radius would be superfluous. Yes, he has more resilience than Dragon Knights, but Dragon Knights don't lose as many fights in this list because a) that 12" banner will probably affect them, and b) they get to innately reroll a die when dueling - so they're getting anywhere between 4-6 dice depending on whether you're mounted and on the charge and within 12" of the Dragon Emperor's ride. You're able to get roughly 2 Dragon Knights for the cost of Amdur - I think you'll be okay.

Of course, fielding 2 Dragon Knights is quite hard in this Legion since you have access to Rutabi - an infantry commander that was introduced in Defence of the North and is basically an infantry-only counterpoint to Amdur. While Amdur has a mount, a banner radius, and Blood and Glory, Rutabi is infantry, rerolls all failed To Wounds against trapped models, and has Master of Battle (3+). Together, they're great - but if you're down Amdur, you can probably get some good work out of Rutabi (who comes in cheaper than Amdur too).

There is no replacing a spell-caster on a Fell Beast (though Khamul's spell-casting is harder than most) - but with the brute force of high-Fight, high-Defense troops and solid combat hero options, you can probably weather whatever storm comes your way without the Fell Beast. I'm not EXACTLY sure that it's true, but it probably is.

Weakness #2: No Allies = No Punch

Easterlings have long been critiqued as not being able to punch through enemy lines (especially those of the D6+ variety - of which there are many). This critique isn't unique to Easterlings - it's also a common critique of Elves, Minas Tirith, Arnor, and basically anyone that's capped at S3. The Easterlings got some new units in Defence of the North, but only War Drakes (who don't have a model yet - and more importantly don't have a known base size yet, though 40mm is a pretty good guess) are good at punching through high-Defense lines. Without Amdur, your heroes are all S4 without the ability to two-hand (unless you run Easterling Captains on foot - more on them in a bit). Wounding on 5s is fine (D5-6 models), but against most combat-oriented heroes and monsters who you will wound on 6s (D7-8), these guys are going to struggle to kill things. Nothing new, perhaps, but at least if you were running Amdur and/or Khamul (or allying in Morannon Orcs, Mordor Uruk-Hai, or Khandish chariots), you'd have some options.

Strength #2: Loss Avoidance

While killing things is important, winning fights is a good way to make sure you don't die. There are generally speaking two ways to "make sure" (as much as you can in a dice game where nothing is sure) you don't lose a lot of fights: roll more dice and up your Fight Value. This Legion does both - not just on their heroes, but on their warriors too. A 12" banner is huge - basically everyone you have fighting is going to be within range of the banner of the Dragon Emperor (unless you're playing Maelstrom) and with the ability to get two models supporting, these guys can roll 4 dice in each fight easily (or 3 dice if you have a single model shielding). If you're sitting at F4-5, you've got a good chance of at least tying (if not beating) your opponent's Fight Value - and with more dice and a tied/higher Fight Value, you should win most of your fights.

Even if you can't convert these wins to kills (though with 3 dice, you have a roughly 40% chance of killing a D6-7 model), you aren't coughing up kills in return - so your opponent might be able to beat you in some fights, but you should have a solid block of guys at the end of the round ready to spread out and kill whoever comes. Over time, you should be able to kill a few models each turn - and so long as you only cough up a few losses, you should be fine.

One unconventional way to avoid losing fights is to cast Tremor with Brorgir. While Tremor may kill a model, anyone who survives will be prone, so if you can charge them, they'll die more easily if you win and won't get to Strike you if they lose. This may count as increasing the "punch" on the Legion/Easterlings in general (as would Bladewrath), but not enough in my book to invalidate the previous point.

Those are basically the trades - I think both lists are good, depending on how you want to play. Let's dig into a few changes that would be good for the Legion (at least in my book).

Part 3: Legendary Legion Improvements

I think the most glaring omission in the Legion is that Rutabi, while designated as the "General of the Dragon Legion" doesn't get to upgrade Easterling Warriors or Easterling Kataphrakts in her warband to Black Dragons for free. It's a little nonsensical to me to see her leading "normal" Easterlings when the unnamed Dragon Knights are leading Black Dragons around her. I can imagine the game balance issues of allowing up to 15 MORE models to be upgraded to F4/C4, but the boost makes them on-par in stats with Black Numenoreans (-1pt and no Terror), so getting these upgrades "for free" isn't that big of a deal. Most Easterling Warriors are paying extra for their Phalanx rule - and that means they're already a bit outclassed UNLESS they're getting 2 pikes supporting them (which a good chunk of the time they can in this Legion).

I'd also really wished that there was a reason to take Dragon Cult Acolytes and Easterling Captains more in this list. Acolytes have 2 Attacks each - and that SHOULD make them really good - but without Phalanx, they will get either 1 supporting model, 0 supporting models, or 2 supporting models in a loose Phalanx like I've recommended for Isengard, Lorien, or the Fiefdoms. Acolytes also have throwing daggers (which I love), but for 11pts each, they're +3pts over a Black Dragon Warrior with shield and are suffering from -2 Defense (which makes them glass cannons in the list instead of the highly-durable front line that most Easterling players want). In a normal list, paying 10pts for a Black Dragon or 11pts for a Dragon Cult Acolyte makes some sense, but here, it just doesn't.

And Easterling Captains - I mean, where to begin? Do you really need 2 Might for March when you can get a F5/3A Minor Hero for slightly more points and get up to 12 free points in Black Dragon upgrades (which offsets the increased cost quite a bit)? I mean, seriously, unless you REALLY want to move 12" in a single turn (which has its uses), you really don't need Captains in this list.

I think it would be useful if Acolytes were S4 when fielded in an Easterling Captain's warband - they're "beefy dudes" and being S4 would let them contribute to something that Easterling phalanxes can struggle with: killing someone when they win. Both Dragon Cult Acolytes and Easterling Captains would at least be contenders for a slot in your lists if this were the case, so I'm gonna recommend it.

Part 4: Army Strategies

There is no better place to begin with a discussion on strategy than the Dragon Emperor. To start with, we need to address my good mate Zorro's big take-away from running this list at the 2022 NOVA tournament (where I think he came in low-20s out of nearly 100 competitors): 27" of rerolls covers a multitude of sins. Yes, a 12" banner isn't unique to Easterlings, but anytime you have rerolls wherever you are fighting, you can have an advantage over your opponent. Furthermore, if you can bring 2-3 dice to the fight BEFORE the reroll, your ability to win fights goes up even more (especially if you have a higher Fight Value).

The Dragon Emperor gives you all these things in this Legion: first, he gives you a 12" banner radius on an 80mm model (which is slightly more than 3" wide), which means there's a 27" diameter of rerolls that will cover a good chunk of the board (~565 sq. inches of usable coverage - and a 4'x4' board has ~2300 sq. inches of space, so you're giving rerolls to any fight on almost 25% of the board).

The second thing the Dragon Emperor gives you is +1 FV to any friendly Warrior models within 6" of him (and can see him) - and since this is on a roughly 3" base model, you've got almost 170 sq. inches of Fight Value boosting area - that's a LOT of space. Since only one friendly Warrior needs to be in that range for the whole fight to be able to use the boosted Fight value, you can actually have your army spread out quite far and STILL have at least one warrior boosted to F4 (or more commonly, F5 if the model has the Black Dragon upgrade).

Both of these boosts are present on the Dragon Emperor regardless of whether you field him in an Easterlings army list or the Host of the Dragon Emperor LL - but the third boost is the kicker: you have 18 slots in the Dragon Emperor's warband that can be upgrade to Black Dragons for free. Yes, that's 36pts of free upgrades to make your Easterling Warriors non-Terror-causing Black Numenoreans for -1pt/model. Heroes like Bard can have a 12" banner (and 12" Fight Value boost), but there's a big difference between F2 Lake-town Militia becoming F3 (or the Master of Lake-town making F3 Lake-town Guard F4) and the Dragon Emperor of Rhun making F4 Black Dragons F5 (within 6") and giving them banner rerolls. Make that boost to F4 (and Courage 4 - which is also really useful) free and you've got some crazy good synergies.

But let's be clear about something: while the Dragon Emperor could field 6 Easterling Warriors with shields and 12 Easterling Warriors with shields and pikes to make a 6-file, 3-rank phalanx, he's far better used to field 2-4 Kataphrakts and 14-16 Warriors with pikes/shields to support friendly models in other warbands that DON'T get the free upgrade to Black Dragon. Heroes like Rutabi and Brorgir (who we'll look at in a minute) are great fun - but the warriors they field will have to pay for their upgrade to Black Dragon. Thankfully, if any model in a fight (Engaged or supporting) has a high Fight Value, it helps. So if the rear-most pikeman happens to be barely within 6" of the Dragon Emperor and has been upgraded to a Black Dragon Warrior, you've got F5 in the fight. There you go - all the benefits from the FV without everyone having to be Black Dragons!

These are the primary support abilities of the Dragon Emperor (and specifically his Palanquin), but we've got to acknowledge that there are some pretty great combat advantages to the Dragon Emperor too. He's F6 with 3-Might-and-Strike and an Elven-made weapon - and that's all independent of the Palanquin. The Palanquin helps him offensively with extra Strikes should he win the duel at S3 (or S6-10 if the model is affected by Bladewrath) and with a defensive barrier (akin to a chariot) against shooting attacks with D7 and 6 Wounds. In combat, your opponent gets to choose who he hits, but since most of the buffs from the Dragon Emperor come from the Palanquin, there's an encouragement for your opponents to devote combat strength against it instead of the Emperor too. He also has access to Heroic Defense with 3 Wounds/3 Fate, if you're worried about taking damage.

He also has an 80mm base . . . which can make charging what you want difficult, it can make it easy to get pinned in place, and it can make you very susceptible to models that debuff you (like Ringbearers and Bat Swarms, as Matt Iverson reminded me). Learning to use big monsters can be hard and the Dragon Emperor may not be a monster, but he certainly qualifies as tricky to use.

Our warrior selection options are larger than they were, but honestly, they only need two profiles: Easterling Warriors and Easterling Kataphrakts. Any Easterling Army probably has an Easterling Kataphrakt with war drum somewhere in the list - the upgrade is cheap, the speed is great (and not very restrictive on your movement), and you want fast units for a number of reasons, so why not include one for 29pts. In this Legion, they become even better, since they can be fielded in a Dragon Knight's warband to help trigger his Gleaming Horde rule (or in the Dragon Emperor's warband if you don't have a Dragon Knight) to get the upgrade to Black Dragon for free. Getting additional Easterling Kataphrakts can be good for triggering Gleaming Horde, so having 3 Kataphrakts OR 5 Kataphrakts and 1 Dragon Knight on armored horse can give you the punch you need to have a "good" cavalry contingent - and at 14pts/model (sans the 15pt drum), it's a pretty inexpensive D7 cavalry division.

You also want a huge pile of Easterling Warriors, since these guys can be F5/S3/D6/C4 warriors for 8-9pts/model if fielded by the Dragon Emperor or Dragon Knights - which is CRAZY good. I mean, it's Elf-level stats (sans the Courage) for sub-Elf-level costs - and very similar to Dwarves! We'll get to Rutabi next, but if she's in your army, her warriors don't have to be upgraded to Black Dragons - so long as she appears near a warband that has them. If your Black Dragons are mostly pike-armed models, you can have your front rank pushed further and further away from the Dragon Emperor and the F5 boost from the back rank will still be there. Yes, there are advantages to having Black Dragons in the front rank, but mostly I think they get their boosts from helping you from the rear (C3 and C4 aren't THAT different).

We now need to talk about Rutabi, because she presents an interesting trade option: Rutabi as a hero is great - she's got good heroic stats and is more resilient in heroic stats than any of the other heroes in this list except the Dragon Emperor (3 Wounds/2 Fate). BUT she's 110pts, which means that for the same cost as one F6/3A hero, you can get almost two F5/3A heroes on foot in the form of Dragon Knights. The Dragon Knights will only be able to field 12 warriors between them vs. Rutabi's 15 warriors, but all of the Dragon Knight's warriors will be upgraded to Black Dragons for free, while Rutabi would need to pay for those upgrades. AND if you were already picking up a Dragon Knight on armored horse, you make up most of the difference in cost between Rutabi and 2 Dragon Knights by dropping the armored horse from the third Dragon Knight . . . so yeah, Master of Battle (3+) and actually having Will/Fate is great, but so is Blood and Glory and being in two different places. So . . . there's a choice to be made - though I'd probably opt for Rutabi most of the time.

Brorgir is in an interesting position as well: for the same cost as a mounted Dragon Knight, he can bring +6 warriors and have magic to augment your army, but he does so without (again) the ability to upgrade units to Black Dragons for free. I like this guy - and I think he's loads better than a normal War Priest (who is very much a free agent except in really niche double-caster lists) - but I think in this Legion, you REALLY need to like Bladewrath (or Tremor) for him to have a place in your army. I could see you swapping him for a Dragon Knight, though.

Finally, we need to talk about bows. Yes, Easterling bowmen are nothing to write home about (4+ shoot value even if upgraded to Black Dragon with 24" range and S2) and this list can certainly be run as a melee-only list (maybe with magical support from Brorgir), but you lose a LOT of your agency against a skirmish force by not having archers. While I am a self-proclaimed NOT-Easterling player, the few times I HAVE dabbled in these black arts (most of the past month), I've been amazed at how useful bowmen in the front rank of your Phalanx can be. I gotta say, being D5 isn't always worse than being D6 - and having bows embedded in your Phalanx can make your opponent come to you. If these guys are standing still and shooting at the oncoming enemy, you can get quite a few bows at 700+ points - and every kill you get is a guy you don't need to try killing in melee. So I put it to you: try having bows in Rutabi's warband (or a few in the Dragon Emperor's warband) and see what happens. At lower points levels (where shooting damage can be game-changing), I wouldn't bother - the Dragon Emperor costs a lot and you'll be hard-pressed to get more than one other hero, so your numbers are going to be tight and your archery is going to be low. But at high points levels . . . well, at least give it a try before you knock my idea. :-)

Part 5: Army Showcase

At 500pts, just filling out the Dragon Emperor's warband is going to eat up most of our points (15 Warriors with shields/pikes and 3 Kataphrakts including a drum runs us 362pts), so once we add Rutabi, we're basically done. While I'd usually encourage some bows, I think at low points levels, you'd be better off skipping them and just relying on throwing F5 pikes into the enemy's face. Rutabi will be leading 4 Easterlings with shields, which requires us to drop 4 pikes from the Dragon Emperor's warband, but we end up with a very respectable 24 models (all of which are D6+):

• The Dragon Emperor of Rhun [ARMY LEADER]
• 4 Black Dragon Warriors with shields
• 11 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes
• 2 Black Dragon Kataphrakts
• 1 Black Dragon Kataphrakt with war drum
  
• Rutabi, General of the Dragon Legion
• 4 Easterling Warriors with shields
  

At 700 points, if you want to run a Dragon Knight, we can get two Black Dragon Kataphrakts to escort the Dragon Knight and 40 total models (which is pretty good) - note that if you prefer Brorgir, you can transfer the Black Dragon Kataphrakts to the Emperor's warband, swap the 5 archers out of the Emperor's warband for 3 shield/pike guys, and downgrade the pike in Brorgir's new warband to "just a normal Easterling":

• The Dragon Emperor of Rhun [ARMY LEADER]
• 13 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes
• 5 Black Dragon Warriors with bows
  
• Rutabi, General of the Dragon Legion
• 5 Easterling Warriors with shields
  
• 8 Easterling Warriors with bows
  
• Easterling Dragon Knight on armored horse
• 4 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes
• 1 Black Dragon Kataphrakt
• 1 Black Dragon Kataphrakt with war drum
  

Alternatively, you could try the "no Rutabi/all Black Dragon" variant, which is not as good from a hero perspective, but makes your warriors as a whole much better. As was mentioned above, running 2 mounted Dragon Knights (with 2 Kataphrakts each) is awkward at 700pts (it fits much better at 600pts), but you can run three dismounted Dragon Knights (who are 3A models with potentially 2 pike supports and 1-2 rerolls depending on how close they are to the Dragon Emperor). This list features 39 models (so -1 model from the previous list), mostly because 3 dismounted Dragon Knights cost 5pts more than Rutabi and a mounted Dragon Knight - so you can drop a model and upgrade an infantry guy to get a third Kataphrakt. Is this going to be "better" than running Rutabi? I don't know - you're getting +1 Might initially (and could get more out of Blood and Glory), but you're losing the Master of Battle (3+) and quite a bit of resiliency across your Dragon Knights. Still, it's a build - and it wouldn't be any more fun to face unless you had a lot of casting/archery:

• The Dragon Emperor of Rhun [ARMY LEADER]
• 13 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes
• 4 Black Dragon Warriors with bows
  
• Easterling Dragon Knight
• 3 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes
  
• 2 Black Dragon Warriors with bows
• 1 Black Dragon Kataphrakt
  
• Easterling Dragon Knight
• 3 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes
• 2 Black Dragon Warriors with bows
• 1 Black Dragon Kataphrakt
  
• Easterling Dragon Knight
• 3 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes
• 2 Black Dragon Warriors with bows
• 1 Black Dragon Kataphrakt

As I've already mentioned, I passed a list of questions on to my good mate MinutemanKirk and in addition to the comments he provided, he also sent along a list that he's been using - as you can see, he doesn't believe in the bows of the Easterlings (and this is probably a more normal Dragon Emperor list that you'd see in competitive play) and does believe in upgrading a few Warriors to Black Dragons in Rutabi's warband. He's also opted for Brorgir over a Dragon Knight and two Rhunish War Drakes (which he loves way more than me):

• The Dragon Emperor of Rhun [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Black Dragon Warriors with shields
• 10 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes
• 2 Black Dragon Kataphrakts
• 1 Black Dragon Kataphrakt with war drum
• Rutabi, General of the Dragon Legion
• 4 Easterling Warriors with shields
• 4 Easterling Warriors with shields and pikes
• 4 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes
• 2 Rhunish War Drakes
• Brorgir the Conjurer
• 4 Easterling Warriors with shields
• 4 Easterling Warriors with shields and pikes
• 3 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes

Our final list takes the list to what might be its nastiest extreme: a 350pt list with JUST the Dragon Emperor and his warband. At 350pts, your opponent is VERY UNLIKELY to have a heavy-hitter who can rival the Dragon Emperor (unless he's got Elessar - but even then, I'm not sure). What's more, we can either get 18 models with 3 Kataphrakts OR we can get 19 models with just the war drum Kataphrakt. I've opted for "just the drum", which gives you the flexibility to array your pikes as much as you want with token cavalry support (mostly used to turn off an enemy cavalry bonus) AND gives you one extra model and slightly more pikes. I've opted for no bows here - the points level was awkward and we were never going to get enough bows in the list to make it matter:

• The Dragon Emperor [ARMY LEADER]
• 2 Black Dragon Warriors with shields
• 15 Black Dragon Warriors with shields and pikes
• 1 Black Dragon Kataphrakt with war drum
  

Army Summary

And with that, this adamantly NOT Easterling player just tried his hardest to do justice to a very popular list that he very much dislikes. :-) I will say that with the release of this Legion, my dislike of Easterlings has diminished some, but I'm still not ready to take the dive into them - and will continue to take jabs at them as I find them available. If you've had success with the Host of the Dragon Emperor's Legion, let us know in the comments below! Until next time, happy hobbying!